Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Lancashire Asylums Board Bill [Lords] (by Order),

Read the Third time, and passed, with Amendments.

Glasgow University (Barbour Scholarship) Order Confirmation Bill [Lords],

Burntisland Water Order Confirmation Bill [Lords],

Read the Third time, and passed, without Amendment.

VENTILATION OF THE HOUSE.

Captain Viscount CURZON: On a point of Order. May I ask whether it is possible to open any of the windows round the House? Last year, you will recollect, Sir, we had some windows open. There seems to be a very unpleasant smell.

Mr. SPEAKER: I will speak to the engineer.

Oral Answers to Questions — LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVES.

Mr. LANSBURY: 1.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can inform the House as to what nations have representatives permanently stationed at Geneva for work in connection with the League of Nations; whether these representatives also deal with questions connected with the International Labour Office; whether any nations have special Departments connected with their Foreign Offices for work connected with the League of Nations; and what arrange-
ments are now made or contemplated by the present Government to ensure that work connected with the League of Nations receives full attention here?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Ponsonby): The following countries have representatives permanently at Geneva. Except in the cases of Austria and Venezuela they deal both with League work and with the International Labour Office:
Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, China, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Hungary, Irish Free State, Japan, Poland and Venezuela.
Brazil recently decided to establish a permanent representative at Geneva. I am not aware whether he will deal with Labour as well as with League questions. I understand that Chile, Italy and Norway have representatives dealing with Labour questions, but not with League work. I am making inquiries covering the third part of the question. As regards the last part, I have nothing to add to the reply given to the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Ormsby-Gore) on the 3rd March.

Mr. LANSBURY: Have the Government contemplated having a permanent representative at Geneva, and have they considered the advisability of having a representative to speak in this House, as in another place?

Mr. PONSONBY: I shall require notice of that.

NEW GUINEA MANDATE.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: 4.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the New Guinea Mandate will come up for consideration by the Mandates Commission of the League of Nations.

Mr. PONSONBY: The hon. and gallant Member presumably refers to the Mandatory's Annual Report. This is no doubt, as usual, being considered by the Mandates Commission at its present session.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Have any instructions been given to our representatives to look into this Mandate, in view of the very serious allegations that are being made now in Australia by a former officer of health in this area of New Guinea?

Mr. PONSONBY: We shall no doubt get a report from the Mandates Commission in due course.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Can I be informed of the instructions to our representatives? Are they instructed to look into this matter?

PUBLIC SITTINGS.

Mr. J, HARRIS: 47.
asked the Prime Minister whether, seeing that it is now the practice of the Council of the League of Nations to hold most of its sittings in public, and that the results of this practice have been wholly satisfactory, he will recommend the approaching Inter-Allied Conference to follow this example of open diplomacy in international affairs?

The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Mr. Clynes): The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative, and I believe that, on the whole, the results have been satisfactory. The proceedings of the forthcoming Conference in London are not, however, similar to those of the Council of the League, and I cannot, therefore, adopt the recommendation suggested by the hon. Member.

Mr. HARRIS: Can the right hon. Gentleman indicate shortly in what respect these questions differ from the international problems submitted to the Council of the League?

Mr. CLYNES: It must be obvious that there are cases which could not be conducted in public.

Oral Answers to Questions — EGYPT.

WATER SUPPLY.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 2.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what arrangements are proposed for safeguarding the water supply of Egypt drawn from the portions of the Nile outside Egyptian jurisdiction and control?

Mr. PONSONBY: The water supply of Egypt can be safeguarded by an agreement.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is this matter one of the subjects to be discussed?

Mr. PONSONBY: Yes, this is one of the subjects which will be under discussion if the Egyptian Prime Minister comes over here.

Mr. RONALD McNEILL: May I ask whether, in the event of the British Administration remaining in the Sudan, there will be any danger to the water supply of Egypt?

TURKISH TRIBUTE LOANS.

Mr. FRANKLIN: 7.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if his attention has been called to the reported decision of the Egyptian Government to default upon the instalments in respect of the Turkish tribute loans after 15th July; will he inquire whether the instalments on the 4 per cent. bonds, due 31st July next, will be paid; and what does he propose to do with a view to safeguarding the interests of the bondholders

Mr. PONSONBY: I have not received any official confirmation of the alleged intentions of the Egyptian Government, as stated in the newspapers, but Lord Allenby has been asked to Make inquiries, and to report by telegraph.

Oral Answers to Questions — PEACE TREATIES.

INTER-ALLIED MILITARY COMMITTEE.

Brigadier-General SPEARS: 3.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will consider the employment of the British Military Attaché in Paris to advise the Ambassador on military matters with out, as at present, submitting questions to the Inter-Allied Military Committee, in view of the fact that His Majesty's Government have no control over this body?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Major Attlee): I have been asked to reply. The hon. and gallant Member appears to be under some misapprehension. The British Military Attaché occupies a dual position, as Attaché and as British representative on the. Inter-Allied Military Committee. The duties of the latter appointment in no way interfere with the effective discharge of those of the former, which include advice to the Ambassador on all military matters.

Brigadier-General SPEARS: May I ask the Under-Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs whether he considers the Inter-Allied Military Committee, which is presided over by Marshal Foch, is a suitable body to advise the Ambassador?

Mr. PONSONBY: That is a matter of opinion.

Mr. PRINGLE: What is your opinion?

ALLIED REPRESENTATIVES (INTERVIEWS).

Lieut. - Colonel Sir FREDERICK HALL: 5.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the arrangements made by him from time to time for interviews with representatives of the Allied Governments for the preliminary discussion of matters of common interest follow the practice in this respect which was established between 1918 and 1922 when the Prime Minister of the day was acting as de facto head of the Foreign Office?

Mr. PONSONBY: I am afraid I do not precisely understand to what the hon. and gallant Member is referring. I am not aware of any deviation that has been made from the usual practice of the head of the Foreign Office in this matter.

Sir F. HALL: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Prime Minister has always been opposed to what he calls secret diplomacy, yet is he not adopting the same attitude as was adopted by Prime Ministers before, and does he not find it necessary to do so?

Mr. PONSONBY: No; the Prime Minister has declared himself against secret diplomacy, and his actions show that he is.

Sir F. HALL: May I ask whether he has not found it necessary to adopt the same principles as the Prime Ministers who have preceded him?

Mr. PRINGLE: Can the Under-Secretary tell us in what respect the present Prime Minister's position differs from that of the right hon. Gentlemen who preceded him? There is no answer to that.

WAR RESPONSIBILITY, GERMANY.

Sir F. HALL: 6.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any intimation has been received from the German Government that it proposes in any further negotiations which may take
place with the Allies to raise afresh the question of Germany's responsibility for the War; and if he will state whether the Allied Governments have come to any agreement on the question whether this subject shall be allowed to be re-opened in connection with the discussion of reparations and other matters?

Mr. PONSONBY: The answer to the first part of this question is in the negative. The last part does not, therefore, arise.

Sir F. HALL: Then may I ask the hon. Gentleman if he has seen the resolution that was passed when Herr Marx, the German Chancellor, was present only a few days ago, in which the intimation was made that the question of guilt was withdrawn from Germany, and whether he will take steps to communicate with the German Government on the point, and not have a misapprehension hanging over us?

Mr. PRINGLE: Is it not the case that if the Under-Secretary communicated with the German Government, his communication would be to the effect that he was in agreement with the German Government?

Sir F. HALL: May I ask if the Under-Secretary agrees with the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Pringle).

INTER-ALLIED CONFERENCE.

Mr. JOHN HARRIS: 8.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he proposes to publish in the form of a White Paper the correspondence and memoranda which have led up to the Inter-Allied Conference; and, if so, whether publication will take place prior to the meeting of the Conference?

Mr. PONSONBY: Publication took place last night.

Mr. HARRIS: Are we to understand that this represents the whole of the correspondence?

Mr. PONSONBY: Yes, Sir; that is so.

Mr. HARRIS: Have no communications of any kind been sent to the Dominions? There are no Dominion documents in this at all.

Mr. PONSONBY: I shall require notice of that.

AMBASSADORS' CONFERENCE.

Brigadier-General SPEARS: 46.
asked the Prime Minister whether questions dealt with by the Ambassadors' Conference have been first submitted to the League and only referred to the Conference if the League is unable or unwilling to deal with them; and, if not, will he undertake that in future this shall be done

Mr. CLYNES: The answer to both parts of the question is in the negative.

Brigadier-General SPEARS: Would it not be a mistake to hand over to the League these and possibly other questions now being dealt with by the Ambassadors' Conference?

Mr. CLYNES: I would prefer that the hon. and gallant Member should await the further statement on this point by the Prime Minister.

RUSSIA (ORANGE BOOK).

Mr. MOREL: 9.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, seeing that the collection of pre-War documents known as the Russian Orange Book, purporting to contain the accurate text of the despatches of the late Imperial Russian Government to various Governments and of its agents abroad to the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs in the months of July and August, 1914, are proved to have been falsified in many vital particulars and that the inaccurate text was issued by His Majesty's Government as a State Paper, he will consider whether the time has come when this unwitting deception of the British public should be remedied by the issue of an amended State Paper containing the accurate text of these documents?

Mr. PONSONBY: My hon. Friend's proposal opens up a prospect which His Majesty's Government could not entertain, of again laying before Parliament, in the light of subsequent publications in foreign countries, the whole of the diplomatic correspondence on the outbreak of the War. If a revised edition of "The Collected Diplomatic Documents on the Outbreak of the War" were to be issued, it would be necessary to include in it not merely the new documents contained in the publication referred to by the hon. Member, but also
the very much more voluminous collection of documents published in Vienna and Berlin. The proper way to deal with this is by the publication of that part of the Russian Orange Book which consists of correspondence between His Majesty's Government and the Russian Government in the publication of pre-War records which is now being arranged, as the hon. Member knows from my reply to him on the 2nd July.

Mr. RONALD McNEILL: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether any falsifications have taken place, and whether they are the work of the present custodians of the Russian archives?

Mr. PONSONBY: I shall require notice of that.

Mr. HOPE: Is it the intention of the Foreign Office to bring these records up to date? At present they do not go beyond 1832, I believe.

Mr. PONSONBY: I think if the right hon. Gentleman refers to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Morel) on 2nd July, he will see exactly what is the view of His Majesty's Government.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL NAVY.

OFFICERS' RETIRED PAY.

Viscount CURZON: 10.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether the Committee to inquire into the withheld retired pay of naval officers have as yet reported; and whether the Government intend to adopt its recommendations?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Ammon): I understand that the Committee may be expected to report within the next week or two.

Viscount CURZON: Will it be the next week, or the week after? The matter is very urgent.

Mr. AMMON: I cannot control the Committee. We hope it will be next week, or the week after.

Colonel ASHLEY: Could the hon. Gentleman communicate with the Chairman of the Committee, and ask him to report, if possible, before we adjourn for
the holidays, so that we may have a discussion in this House?

NAVAL REVIEW.

Viscount CURZON: 11.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether at the forthcoming naval review a destroyer or flotilla leader can be detailed to embark those Members of Parliament not so far provided for, got under weigh, and proceed down the lines with other ships already detailed; and whether, in any event, arrangements can be made for Members to go on board some of the ships at anchor, travelling at their own expense?

Mr. AMMON: Owing to their limited accommodation, destroyers or flotilla leaders would hardly meet the purpose; to provide adequate accommodation for all Members of Parliament one or more passenger ships would have to be specially chartered, but the financial limitations imposed do not permit of such chartering. As regards the second part of the question, it has been arranged that certain of the ships at anchor shall be open to visitors at certain hours on the 24th, 25th and 27th July, but it would not be convenient for Members to go on board during the actual day of the review.

Viscount CURZON: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the suggestion in the first part of the question was intended merely as supplementary to arrangements already made? It was not intended that the destroyer should convey all Members of Parliament, but only those not already provided for in the ships already detailed.

Major Sir BERTRAM FALLE: 17.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty if he is aware that there are a number of veterans in Portsmouth; and if he can make some arrangements, such as have been made in past years, to allow their seeing the naval review and following the same in one of His Majesty's ships?

Mr. AMMON: No record can be found of arrangements having been made as suggested at former reviews of the Fleet, and I regret that there will not be any of His Majesty's vessels available on this occasion for the service in question.

Sir B. FALLE: Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that His Majesty's ship "Sea-
horse" has previously performed this function, and is it not possible that one of the destroyers or flotilla leaders should take these old veterans, as has been requested?

Mr. AMMON: If the hon. and gallant Gentleman has any information he thinks will help, I shall be glad to have it.

HIS MAJESTY'S SHIP "COCKCHAFER" (WAN HSIEN).

Mr. LANSBURY: 12.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether he has received the report of the officer commanding the gunboat "Cockchafer" relative to the incidents connected with the murder of an American citizen at Wan Hsien, and the execution of two men alleged to be the murderers; and, if he has received the Report, will he lay copies upon the Table of this House?

Mr. AMMON: The Report referred to has not been received. Assuming that the written report was despatched at the time the telegraphic report was sent, it should arrive about the middle of August. The question of publishing the report will then be considered.

Mr. LANSBURY: In the telegraphic report that states that these two men were executed, does it say that they were put on trial first'.

Mr. AMMON: I am afraid I cannot give any information about that until I receive the full report.

VOCATIONAL TRAINING.

Sir B. FALLE: 15.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether he will authorise vocational training during the last three months of service before pension for naval ratings who are specially recommended by their commanding officers or, if the number of ratings available will not permit of this, whether he will consider the payment of marriage allowance for three months after discharge to pensions for those ratings who are recommended for and undergo an approved course of vocational training?

Mr. AMMON: I regret that the reply must be in the negative. The Admiralty orders on the subject are designed to
employ the limited funds available to the best advantage of the men of the lower deck.

Sir B. FALLE: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there is no difficulty in the sister Service, where the men are given this privilege, and why should it not be done here?

Mr. AMMON: I am not concerned with the other Service; what I have to do is to make the best use of the limited fund at my disposal.

NAVAL RATINGS (RESETTLEMENT).

Sir B. FALLE: 16.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty when it is anticipated the Report of the Committee appointed to inquire into the resettlement of naval ratings on return to civil life, presided over by Captain E. M. Bennett, O.B.E., R.N., will be published?

Mr. AMMON: It is not intended to publish the Report, which was intended for the confidential information of the Board of Admiralty.

ADMIRALTY YACHT "ENCHANTRESS."

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 18.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty what official duties will be performed by the Admiralty yacht "Enchantress," or to what uses will she be put, apart from conveying the Board of Admiralty round the lines of warships at the review; and whether there are no official or unofficial buildings at Ports-Mouth which could be used for the accommodation of their Lordships instead of this vessel?

Mr. AMMON: I have nothing to add to the replies already given to the House with regard to the first part of the question. It is obvious that the hiring of hotel accommodation with its attendant disadvantages is possible, but the Board prefer to use the vessel which was constructed for the purpose required and is now available for it.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: So that rather than go to an hotel a ship has to be specially commissioned at a cost of £ 1,100?

Mr. STURROCK: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in the general view it is highly desirable that the Lords of the
Admiralty should have every facility in visiting the Fleet?

SHIPS ON CHINA STATION (REFITTING).

Major HORE-BELISHA: 19.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty what accommodation, if any, is provided for the crews of His Majesty's ships on the China station during the periods they are undergoing refit at the Hong Kong naval yard; if the whole of the crews be accommodated on board their ships during these periods, is he aware that such such procedure must cause much inconvenience to the officers and men and at the same time be a hindrance to the workmen employed in the ships during the refit; and whether he can make arrangements for the crews of His Majesty's ships undergoing refit at Hong Kong to be accommodated in quarters other than their own ships in a similar manner to the procedure which was in force at the port in question prior to 1918, or on similar lines to the arrangements made for crews of His Majesty's ships of the East India squadron?

Mr. AMMON: I would refer the hon. Member to the replies given to the hon Member for Central Portsmouth (Sir T. Bramsdon) on the 15th April and the 5th May last, of which I am sending him a copy.

EX-SERVICE MEN (ADMIRALTY EXAMINATION).

Major HORE-BELISHA: 20.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty, with reference to the examination which is contemplated for ex-service men employed as temporary civil servants under the Admiralty, whether he is aware of the, great hardship which such examination imposes upon those who have done good service to the country over long periods of time and under very difficult conditions, having done five years or more of good work under the Government since the War; and whether he will state why they have now to submit to an educational, Departmental and medical test to ascertain whether they are fit for retention in their present capacity, although they have given every satisfaction and have demonstrated their ability; and whether he can see his way to exempt these men from the examination proposed or
their dismissal as the result of such examination?

Mr. AMMON: The examination which was held on the 3rd July was of a comparatively simply character and suited to the age of the ex-service competitors, and should not have imposed great hardship on any of he candidates. Appointments of temporary clerks to the clerical grades of the Civil Service are made by examination, and this practice has been endorsed by Lord Southborough's Committee in its final Report. No person can be given an established post until he has satisfied the Civil Service Commissioners of his physical fitness, amongst other factors. As T have already explained to the hon. Member, there is provision for the medical standard to be relaxed in the favour of men whose health has been impaired as a result of service in the forces in the late War.

Major HORE-BELISHA: Will the hon. Gentleman see that these ex-service men are not displaced, seeing that they have done long, continuous, and satisfactory service for many years; will he give the House that assurance?

Mr. AMMON: if the hon. and gallant Gentleman looks at the reply which I have given, he will see he has that assurance.

WASH (LAND RECLAMATION).

Viscount CURZON: 24.
asked the Minister of Labour whether he can yet state when the land reclamation scheme on the Wash is going to be started?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of AGRICULTURE (Mr. W. R. Smith): I have been asked to reply. The land reclamation work and certain ancillary works (roadmaking, etc.) in connection therewith, have been put out to tender, and it is hoped that tenders will be received by the end of next week. There will then be very little delay before the work is started.

Viscount CURZON: If I repeat the question this day fortnight, will the hon. Gentleman be able to give me an answer?

Major HORE-BELISHA: Is the hon. Gentleman relying entirely upon private enterprise in this matter?

Oral Answers to Questions — UNEMPLOYMENT.

RATES OF WAGES

Mr. MILLS: 23.
asked the Minister of Labour if he will issue an instruction to all employment exchange managers and staff that bonâ fide skilled men registering for employment are entitled to the minimum rate of wages recognised as the district wage, and that length of unemployment, especially in the branches of the engineering trade, shall not, in view of the long-continued depression in that industry, be regarded as an excuse to refuse benefit if the skilled man refuses work at less than the established rate?

The MINISTER of LABOUR (Mr. Shaw): The Employment Exchanges cannot undertake to decide the rate of wages to which an individual workman is entitled. When it is a question of disallowance of covenanted unemployment benefit, statutory rules which, if necessary, are interpreted by the Insurance Officer, Courts of Referees and the Umpire, are laid down by Section 7 of the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1920. Even where uncovenanted benefit is claimed and where the worker may be required in certain circumstances to accept work other than that to which he has been accustomed, such work must still be on terms and conditions which arc fair for that work.

Mr. MILLS: Will the Minister of Labour say whether there are any rules that instruct the officials of the Employment Exchange to enter on a man's notepaper that in their opinion, having been out of work for two years, they think a skilled man should accept a lower rate of wages even than that ordinarily paid in the district?

Mr. SHAW: If my hon. Friend will supply me with particulars I will have inquiry made.

INSURANCE (APPRENTICES).

Lieut. - Colonel Sir PHILIP RICHARDSON: 25.
asked the Minister of Labour why contribution for unemployment insurance is levied in respect of apprentices during the period of their apprenticeship seeing that there is no liability to the fund; and whether he is aware that unemployment is caused be-
cause small employers are unable to bear the cumulative burden of compulsory State insurances?

Mr. SHAW: It is not the case that all apprentices are free from the liability to be unemployed. A suggestion that indentured apprentices whose employers undertake to give them permanent employment should be excepted, has recently been urged upon me, and I have promised to examine it, but the question is full of difficulty, and I cannot undertake to propose any change in the present Unemployment, Insurance Bill. As regards the second part of the Question, I have received no evidence which would lead me to believe that unemployment is being caused by the inability of employers to bear the cost of unemployment insurance contributions.

BENEFIT (Eastville).

Mr. BAKER: 26.
asked the Minister of Labour whether, as a result of representations made to his Department, the cases of men attached to the Eastville Employment Exchange have been reconsidered for benefit by the Eastville Employment Exchange Rota Committee, and have been recommended for benefit; whether he is aware that in the case of many men who were recommended for benefit as long as a month ago no payments have been made; and whether. having regard to the urgent nature of the cases, he will issue immediate instructions authorising the payments which have been recommended by his local advisers?

Mr. SHAW: Certain cases at the Eastville were reviewed by the local committee during June and July. The recommendations of the committee had to be specially considered by the Department, and this led to a certain amount of unavoidable delay, but in the result all the recommendations for allowance of benefit were accepted, save in three cases. Payment has been made, except in two cases which were dealt with by the committee on 7th July, and four other cases in which the claimants have not attended for payment.

Mr. BAKER: Is it not a fact that that payment has only been made since this question was put on the Paper?

Mr. SHAW: That may be the case.

Sir F. HALL: Is it not often the case?

Mr. SHAW: I am not aware that it is.

Sir F. HALL: I will press the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. SPEAKER: Mr. Foot Mitchell.

UNCOVENANTED BENEFIT.

Mr. D. G. SOMERVILLE: 36.
asked the Minister of Labour what number of men over 60 years of age were struck off uncovenanted unemployment benefit during the month of June this year?

Mr. SHAW: I regret that no statistics are available on this point.

Mr. SOMERVILLE: Is it a fact that these men over 60 when paid off are removed to the workhouse? Can the right hon. Gentleman tell me if there are any cases of the kind?

Mr. SHAW: I have no information. If the hon. Gentleman will supply me with particulars I will look into them.

MARRIED WOMEN.

Mr. HANNON: 37.
asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that a woman who voluntarily leaves her employment in order to be married can, after three months, apply to be placed on the register for employment and, pending further appointment, draw unemployment benefit; whether he can state how many married women are at present receiving such benefit who have not been in employment since their marriage or who have only qualified for unemployment benefit by adding their pre-marriage insurance contributions to their post-marriage contributions; and what measures he proposes to adopt to safeguard the unemployment Insurance Fund in such cases?

Mr. SHAW: As regards the first and third parts of I he, question, any insured contributor, in order to be eligible for benefit, must be available t' or work and unable to obtain suitable employment. These conditions apply both to covenanted and uncovenanted benefit, and the umpire, the courts of referees, and the insurance officer take into account a claimant's domestic duties in deciding whether the condition "available for work" is satisfied. Further safeguards are provided as regards uncovenanted benefit by additional statutory conditions to ensure that all beneficiaries from the
fund are genuine industrial units. As regards the second part of the question no statistics are available.

Mr. HANNON: In view of the abuse that is arising in cases of this kind, will the right hon. Gentleman give special instructions to the Employment Exchanges to be more watchful in these cases?

Mr. SHAW: If the hon. Member will supply me with the case he refers to, of which I have no knowledge, I will take such steps as are necessary.

Lieut.-Colonel JAMES: Is it the business of the Minister of Labour to be acquainted with these cases without being notified by hon. Members?

Mr. SHAW: It may be my business to be acquainted with things generally that occur, but I am not always satisfied that they have occurred.

PHYSICAL TRAINING.

Mr. SANDEMAN: 55.
asked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the great benefit which would accrue, both morally and physically, by the introduction of compulsory physical training for three hours daily (Sundays excepted) to all those certified medically fit and under 50 years of age, who are drawing unemployment insurance, he will introduce legislation to that effect?

The MINISTER of HEALTH (Mr. Wheatley): I am afraid the suggestion of the hon. Member is impracticable.

Mr. SANDEMAN: Is it not a question of a two-fold opinion, and the right hon. Gentleman does not know which to accept? Does he think it would be bad for the health of these people to do exercise, or would it, perhaps, be very unpopular as a vote-catching scheme?

PEA PICKING, ESSEX.

Mr. W. FOOT MITCHELL: 31.
asked the Minister of Labour whether he is satisfied that the labour now available for pea picking in Essex is adequate?

Mr. SHAW: I would refer the bon. Member to the answer I gave yesterday to a similar question by the hon. Member for Epping (Sir L. Lyle).

BLANTYRE COLLIERY (DISPUTE).

Sir K. WOOD: 33.
asked the Minister of Labour whether he can state the position of the strike at Loanend Colliery, Blantyre?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. A. V. Alexander): I have been asked to reply. My hon. Friend has no information beyond that contained in the reply he gave the hon. Member on 24th June.

Sir K. WOOD: Has my hon. Friend taken any interest at all in this matter? How long is the strike going to continue Is it not time that a Court of Inquiry was appointed?

HON. MEMBERS: Answer!

Viscount CURZON: May we press the hon. Gentleman for an answer?

Mr. SPEAKER: The Minister is not responsible for the strike.

Mr. PRINGLE: On a point of Order. Has not the Minister certain powers and duties in regard to strikes, and is it not competent for a Member to interrogate him on the exercise of those powers?

Mr. SPEAKER: On the exercise of the powers with regard to a Court of Inquiry certainly.

Sir K. WOOD: May I have a reply?

Mr. ALEXANDER: All I can say is that I will bring the matter before the notice of my right hon. Friend.

Sir K. WOOD: I will put another question down.

LONDON BOARDS OF GUARDIANS (SURCHARGES).

Sir K. WOOD: 40.
asked the Minister of Health whether he can now make a statement concerning the appeals he has received against surcharges made by the district auditor in the cases of certain London boards of guardians?

Mr. WHEATLEY: As was stated in reply to a recent question by the hon. Member, the appeals are under consideration. I am not yet in a position to make any statement as to my decision in the matter.

Sir K. WOOD: Does the right hon. Gentleman not think that these matters
have been very long delayed, and is it not time that he came to a decision so that the House may know exactly what he is doing?

Viscount CURZON: Will the right hon. Gentleman be able to announce his decision 'before the House rises for the Recess?

Mr. WHEATLEY: I am advised probably not. They have not yet reached it.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING.

WHITE HART LANE ESTATE (TOTTENHAM).

Mr. ROBERT MORRISON: 41.
asked the Minister of Health whether he has yet received any representations from the London County Council upon the question of reducing the original rents of post-War houses upon the White Hart Lane estate, Tottenham?

Mr. WHEATLEY: No such representations have been received by my Department.

AGRICULTURAL PARISHES.

Lieut. - Commander FLETCHER: 42.
asked the Minister of Health how many villages in the administrative county of Hampshire will be eligible to obtain the subsidy of £12 10s. per house under the new Housing Bill?

Mr. WHEATLEY: It is estimated that 116 parishes in the administrative county of Southampton would be treated as agricultural parishes under Clause 2 (2) of the Housing Bill.

Mr. E. BROWN: 78
asked the Minister of Health (1) how many asylums for mentally defective persons are situated in agricultural parishes, and where they are situated;
(2) how many Poor Law institutions are situated in agricultural parishes, and where they are situated;
(3) whether any estimate has been prepared as to the number of villages rendered ineligible for the additional subsidy to agricultural parishes under the Housing (Financial Provisions) Bill owing to the presence of permanent railway works in those villages; and, if so, what the number is?

Mr. WHEATLEY: I am afraid that much of the information for which the hon. Member asks is not readily avail-
able and could only be obtained at considerable labour and expense, which I do not think would be justified. The hon. Member will readily understand that it would be administratively impracticable to base any differentiation of areas for the purpose of housing subsidy on tile special features of individual parishes. I have given full consideration to the subject and I am satisfied that the only practicable way of dealing with it is on broad and simple lines such as I have proposed.

Mr. BROWN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he said, in answer to another question, that one third of the villages in England will be ineligible for the extra subsidy owing to the definition in the Bill, and is it not unfair to villages in which asylums, hospitals and permanent railway works happen to be situated that these particular villages, where agricultural workers are badly wanting cottages, should be refused the possibility of getting this extra subsidy?

Mr. WHEATLEY: I have no reason to doubt that what the hon. Member says is strictly accurate. It is difficult in this, as in everything else, to get equality. We can only do the best that is possible. I drafted this Clause and submitted it to the representatives of the rural areas and they unanimously accepted it, and I thought that they knew something about rural areas. Therefor, I took their acceptance as being satisfactory.

Colonel ASHLEY: Is this one of the Measures which the Government is providing for the benefit of agriculture?

Mr. WHEATLEY: It is a good deal more than the hon. Member's party did for the same people.

Mr. BROWN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the rural district councils had no time when his suggestion was put before them to go into the detailed cases of their own districts and see how the proposal would work out. Is he aware that in the Rugby Rural District Council area there are 31 villages, 10 of which are ineligible for the grants of £12 10s., eight on grounds that they slightly exceed the population ratio of 35 persons per 100 acres and two agricultural parishes, Combefields and Eascyhall, because the London Midland and Scottish Railway
main line runs through them, and is he further aware that there are thousands of villages in the same position?

Mr. WHEATLEY: I agree that it was difficult in a day or two to consider this matter in all its bearings, but I would impress upon my hon. Friend that it is utterly impossible to proceed on the basis of dealing with each individual parish on its merits, and that no matter what general principle is laid down there will be hardship.

Mr. BROWN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we are not discussing the question of individual hardship, but that we are fighting for the rights of one third of the villages in England, Wales and Scotland?

STRUCTURAL MATERIALS.

Mr. W. F. MITCHELL: 51.
asked the Minister of Health what structural materials for the construction of houses can be used, respectively, under the Chamberlain proposals of 1923 and the Government proposals of the present year?

Mr. WHEATLEY: According to the circular to local authorities issued in connection with the Housing Act, 1923, the materials to be used for the construction of houses must be of good quality, such as is ordinarily specified by a local authority in a contract for workmen's houses; and the construction must be of a type for which a period of not less than 60 years would be allowed by the Minister of Health for the repayment of loan. Provision was, however, made for variation by special approval of the Minister. The question will be further considered when the time comes for the issue of a circular following on the present Housing Bill.

BUILDING TRADE (APPRENTICES).

Mr. E. SIMON: 52.
asked the Minister of Health whether he will arrange to publish a monthly Return of the number of apprentices in the various sections of the building trade?

Mr. WHEATLEY: I will consider the suggestion of the hon. Member in consultation with the industrial committees which I propose to set up.

SUBSIDISED HOUSES (RENTALS).

Mr. E. SIMON: 53.
asked the Minister of Health whether he proposes to introduce a Bill under which houses costing £500 each will be let at a rent of 3s. 3d. weekly?

Mr. WHEATLEY: No, Sir.

Mr. SIMON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the statement made by him that £500 houses could be let at 3s. 3d. per week has been broadcast all over the country and was repeated by him in an interview in the "New Leader" last Saturday; and will he state frankly that he is perfectly incapable either under Capitalism or Socialism of doing anything of the kind?

Mr. WHEATLEY: It is quite true that I stated in this House and in the public Press that, but for the interest charged on capital, a £500 house could be let economically at 3s. 3d. per week. I am not prepared to say what I should do under a state of Socialism.

Mr. MONTAGUE: Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to bring in a Bill which will allow the Liberal party to vote for the nationalisation of banks in order to make this possible?

Mr. HANNON: How does the Minister of Health propose to erect houses without capital?

Mr. WHEATLEY: I was not proposing to erect houses without capital. I was proposing to erect them with bricks and other materials.

Mr. SIMON: How does the right hon. Gentleman propose to raise the money without paying interest to those who lend the money?

Mr. WHEATLEY: I am not proposing to borrow money free of interest, or to borrow money at all. That will be the business of the local authorities.

BRICKS.

Mr. PENNY: 54.
asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that Belgian bricks are being offered alongside wharf in the Thames at 55s. per 1,000 as compared with 85s. and 75s. for Kentish first-and second-class stock bricks in the field; whether he can say how the quality of the Belgian bricks compares with that of British-made bricks; and whether any
considerable quantity of the former are being used in the construction of subsidised houses?

Mr. WHEATLEY: The answer to the first part of the question is "Yes." In answer to the second, I understand that the bricks at present available are not regarded as equal in quality to first- and second-class stock bricks. In answer to the third, I am not aware that the bricks are being used on subsidised houses. If foreign bricks of satisfactory quality are available at lower prices than British bricks, I should expect local authorities to avail themselves of them.

Mr. PENNY: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell the House how he expects British manufacturers to compete with Belgian manufacturers in view of the wages and hours of the industry in this country?

DWELLING-HOUSES (ALTERNATIVE USE).

Mr. TREVELYAN THOMSON: 56.
asked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the continued aggravation of the housing shortage by the conversion of existing dwelling-houses into offices, garages, clubs, and other purposes, he will reconsider his refusal to introduce legislation this Session, in order that no further diminution of the present number of dwelling-houses shall take place, with its consequent suffering and additional overcrowding?

Mr. WHEATLEY: I will consider whether it will be possible to take steps to deal with the matter referred to, but, in view of the state of Parliamentary business, I am afraid I cannot undertake to introduce legislation for the purpose this Session.

Mr. THOMSON: Does not the right hon. Gentleman consider that the necessities of the people in regard to houses are more important than the Adjournment of Parliament?

EMPTY HOUSES.

Mr. T. THOMSON: 57.
asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that there are a large number of empty houses which are being withheld from occupation; and, as the Government has made no provision for dealing with the same in their Housing Bill, will he take steps to introduce a special Measure
authorising local authorities to make use of such houses, and thereby provide immediate accommodation for thousands of families?

Mr. WHEATLEY: I am aware that in many cases houses are held for sale, but, as I have stated in reply to similar questions, I cannot undertake to introduce special legislation to deal with this matter during the present Session.

Sir K. WOOD: Could the right hon. Gentleman influence one or two of his colleagues, and let them start and show an example?

Mr. D. G. SOMERVILLE: Are the Government prepared to give facilities for a. Bill to enable the Government to let houses which they own, instead of holding them up for sale?

Mr. WHEATLEY: That question might be addressed to the Leader of the House.

MEASUREMENT (LIMITATION).

Mr. T. THOMSON: 58.
asked the Minister of Health whether he has received resolutions from conferences of local authorities held at the Town Hall, Carlisle (for Cumberland and Westmoreland), on 16th June, 1924; the Council Chamber, Newcastle - upon - Tyne (for Northumberland and Durham), on 17th June, 1924; the Lord Mayor's Parlour (for Lancashire and Cheshire), on 18th June, 1924; the Old County Hall, London, S.W. (for Greater London and the Home Counties), on 20th June, 1924; the Council Chamber, Sheffield (for South Yorkshire, North Derbyshire, and North Nottinghamshire), on 19th June, 1924; the Council House, Bristol (for West of England), on 23rd June, 1924; the Council Chamber, Cardiff (for South Wales and Monmouth-shire), on 24th June, 1924; and the Civic Hall, Exeter (for Devon and Cornwall), on 30th June, 1924; protesting against the limitation of the maximum measurement for houses prescribed in the Government's Housing Bill, and urging that local authorities should have greater freedom as to the standards required in their own districts; and will he say what action he proposes to take to meet their wishes in this matter?

Mr. WHEATLEY: I have received a copy of the resolution referred to. With regard to the latter part of the question, I would refer the hon. Member to my
replies to him on the 25th June and 2nd July.

Mr. THOMSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, at the annual meeting of the Municipal Corporations Association, held in the Guildhall this morning under the presidency of Lord Derby, a resolution was passed by 300 representatives of local authorities protesting against this limitation of the size of houses; and, in view of the fact that the right hon. Gentleman said that he had been compelled by the local authorities to make this reduction, will he now reconsider the policy of the Government on this question?

Mr. WHEATLEY: I have not had any intimation of the resolution passed this morning, to which my hon. Friend refers, but I am aware that very few local authorities have utilised to the full the powers they already possess.

Mr. D. G. SOMERVILLE: Is not the fact that the local authorities have not utilised their powers due to there being no men to build the houses or materials with which to build them?

Mr. MASTERMAN: 76.
asked the Minister of Health if he will now state the. figures proposed by the Building Committee in Cmd. 2104 as x and y per square foot at which they are prepared to build two-and-a-half million housed of a limited size during the next 15 years?

Mr. WHEATLEY: I think it would be against the public interest to publish the figures in question. It will be remembered that I have agreed with the local authorities to proceed normally by the method of competitive tenders.

Mr. MASTERMAN: Is it not impossible for us to discuss the question without knowing the offer made between the combination of building operatives and employers?

Mr. WHEATLEY: The right hon. Gentleman is not justified in describing it as an offer. It was an item of information supplied to the Ministry of Health to enable it to judge whether the best competitive tender was a reasonable one in present circumstances. If I circulate it the hon. Member will readily understand it will become a guide to competitors.

Mr. MASTERMAN: Surely the House of Commons ought to have that information before it decides finally.

Mr. WHEATLEY: I am not asking the House of Commons to decide whether that advice was sound or unsound. It was added to the information already at the disposal of the Ministry of Health, which is usually utilised in such cases.

Mr. H. H. SPENCER: Does the Minister call this secret diplomacy?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Having regard to the grave anxiety the whole House feels whether the houses can be built at the price, are we not entitled to these figures?

Mr. WHEATLEY: I think the figures the House ought to know and which will be most useful to Members are the figures at which builders are prepared to build houses. These figures are at the service of the House.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Will the right hon. Gentleman supply the House with a statement of figures as to the price at which builders are prepared to build the houses at present and for the next few years?

Mr. WHEATLEY: I have been supplying figures repeatedly week by week, to the House of the prices at which houses are being built.

Mr. SUNLIGHT: Have not the masters in fact amended the proposed figure?

Major BURNIE: Is it not a fact that the persons who supplied the figures, etc. to you in the Report are the same persons who will tender for houses to be erected under the Bill?

Mr. WHEATLEY: No. The figures were supplied by a committee representing the employers and employés. No such committee proposes to tender.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: May we have an answer to the very important question put by the hon. Member below the Gangway, whether these figures have been altered at all? The suggestion would not be made if it was unfounded.

Mr. WHEATLEY: The right hon. Gentleman is asking me whether the people who supplied these figures have changed their mind. It would be as
difficult for me to enlighten the House on that as on the state of the mind of the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. PRINGLE: Have the members of the committee or any of them made any communication to the Ministry of Health indicating that these figures would have to be amended?

Mr. WHEATLEY: No such communication has been received.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir F. HALL: Why did you not say so before?

BUILDING MATERIALS.

Sir K. WOOD: 61.
asked the Minister of Health whether there has been any increase in the price of building materials, such as lead water-pipes and barrel-pipes due to the increasing demand of foreign markets for these goods?

Mr. WHEATLEY: There have been considerable fluctuations in the prices of such materials as lead and iron water pipes during the last four years. I am not able to say to what extent these fluctuations have been due to the demand of foreign markets. They have, no doubt, been due to various and usual circumstances, but especially to the fluctuations in the prices of raw materials.

WOODEN HOUSES.

Lieut. - Commander FLETCHER: 62.
asked the Minister of Health, with reference to the housing shortage, if he has received any proposals from local authorities relative to the erection of wooden houses; and what steps he has taken or proposes to take to bring to the attention of such authorities the fact that he is prepared to consider such proposals in relation to the Government housing scheme?

Mr. WHEATLEY: A small number of proposals have been received from local authorities for the erection of houses mainly constructed of wood, or for sanction to grant financial aid to such houses, and in some cases approval has been given. I believe the position as regards special methods of construction is generally understood by local authorities, but I will note the hon. Member's suggestion in connection with the issue of a circular following the passing of the Housing Bill.

Lieut.-Colonel FREMANTLE: Would the Minister make some kind of public investigation of the statements in regard to the length of life of these wooden houses, inasmuch as there is a great feeling as to the value of wooden houses, and instances have been brought forward as to their length of life, and yet the general feeling of those who have had experience, as I have, in condemning insanitary houses, is that their life is not long enough to justify the comparative saving in cost?

Mr. WHEATLEY: I think that that information might be very valuable, and I will endeavour to obtain it.

Captain EDEN: Is it not the fact that some of these houses have been in good repair for between 80 and 100 years?

Mr. WHEATLEY: I do not know, but I have known some that were not in good repair after ten years.

CRAFTSMEN.

Mr. ALSTEAD: 64.
asked the Minister of Health the number of bricklayers, plasterers, joiners, flaggers and slaters, and plumbers employed in the building trade in England and Wales on 1st January, 1924, and 1st July, 1924, respectively; and whether he is satisfied that the present number of such building-trade craftsmen is sufficient to enable the industry to provide the number of new houses as set out in the First Schedule of the Housing (Financial Provisions) Bill, 1924, especially in respect to the years 1925 and 1926?

Mr. WHEATLEY: As the answer involves a tabular statement, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. ALSTEAD: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House how he managed to get the figures set out in the Schedule to the Housing (Financial Provisions) Bill, unless he is in possession of the information for which I now ask?

Mr. WHEATLEY: I have not said that I am not in possession of the information, but that it involves a tabular statement, which might be wearisome to the House, and which, accordingly, I propose to circulate.

Mr. ALSTEAD: Is the right hon. Gentleman really in possession of that information?

Mr. WHEATLEY: Yes.

Mr. MONTAGUE: Is it not the fact that that information is contained in the. Building Trades Report, which has been published, and which is already in the hands of hon. Members?

Following is the answer:

Complete information is not available as to the numbers of men employed in the building trade on the dates referred to, but the following estimates are based on the numbers of insured workpeople working for employers in October, 1923:

Occupation and number of skilled men employed in the building trade in England and Wales in October, 1923.


Bricklayers
53,630


Plasterers
13,910


Carpenters & Joiners
106,880


Slaters
2,880


Plumbers
28,430


As regards the last part of the question, this matter was very carefully considered by the experts on the National House Building Committee, who were confident that arrangements could be made which would secure the building of houses up to the number of two-thirds of those stated in the Schedule to the Bill.

BUILDING TRADE AGREEMENT.

Mr. SIMON: 67.
asked the Minister of Health whether the treaty he has made with the building trade as to the augmentation of labour is embodied in any other documents beyond the Housing (Financial Provisions) Bill; if not, whether the building trade and the several trade unions concerned have explicitly accepted the Bill as constituting a guarantee in return for which they are prepared to undertake that there shall be one apprentice to three craftsmen in the various branches of the trade; if so, what period is covered by this undertaking; and will he submit to the House copies of any documents signed on behalf of the building trade or the trade unions in this matter?

Mr. WHEATLEY: The Report of the National House Building Committee has already been submitted to the House, and there are no further documents signed on behalf of the building industry dealing with the matter referred to.

Mr. SIMON: What guarantee is there, in that case, when this treaty is embodied only in the Housing Bill, and if the Housing Bill has not been explicitly accepted by the trade unions, that, if we pass that Bill, it may not be repudiated by one or more trade unions who may refuse to give the extra apprentices and labour which form part of the bargain they have agreed to fulfil?

Mr. WHEATLEY: The only guarantee that one body of honourable men gives to another.

Sir K. WOOD: Would the right hon. Gentleman kindly reply to the second part of the question, as to whether the building trade and the several trade unions concerned have explicitly accepted the Bill as a guarantee?

Mr. SIMON: Is it not the case that honourable bodies of men can only be bound by something to which they have agreed? Have they agreed?

Mr. WHEATLEY: They have agreed to deliver so many houses per annum for a given number of years on condition that the State and the local authorities order them. They have given that guarantee in the Building Trade Report. No other guarantee is of very much importance.

Mr. NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN: Would the right hon. Gentleman say what was the written guarantee to which he referred, and which he stated he had given to the building industry, in his speech on the Second Reading of the Housing Bill?

Mr. WHEATLEY: The only guarantee, whatever I may have said—I am not sure as to the phraseology; I think I used the term "written guarantee," but I meant "printed guarantee"—is contained in the Report of the Building Trade Committee to which I referred in making my speech.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Does not the right hon. Gentleman remember that he spoke of a guarantee given by him to the building industry?

Mr. WHEATLEY: The Building Committee's Report contains the guarantee given by the building industry to me. The Housing Bill contains the guarantee given by me to the building industry.

Mr CHAMBERLAIN: Are we to take it that the written guarantee to which the right hon. Gentleman referred was the Housing Bill?

Mr. WHEATLEY: I was thinking of both sides of the agreement.

Mr. D. G. SOMERVILLE: Is it not a fact that the building trade employés are to-day on strike—[HON. MEMBERS: "Lock-out?"]—strike, not lock-out—and is the guarantee one of the conditions the bricklayers made when they accepted that statement?

BRICKLAYERS (APPRENTICES).

Mr. D. G. SOMERVILLE: 69.
asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that it will be three to four years before any apprentice is capable of taking his place among the tradesmen in the Bricklayers' Union; and whether, under the circumstances, he considers that the restoration of the apprenticeship system in the building industry will be adequate to meet the shortage of labour in carrying out the housing proposals of the Government?

Mr. WHEATLEY: The answer to both questions is "Yes."

Mr. N. MACLEAN: Will the right hon. Gentleman ask the building operatives if they are prepared to extend facilities to the hon. Member who asked the question?

BUILDING COMMITTEE (RECOMMENDATIONS).

Mr. MASTERMAN: 77.
asked the Minister of Health if he will issue a memorandum before the Committee stage of the Housing Bill stating which of the recommendations he intends to put into force which were proposed by the Building Committee and the Building Materials Committee, in Cmd. 2104?

Mr. WHEATLEY: I think that I have already dealt adequately with this matter in the full statements made to the House on the Financial Resolution and Second Reading of the Housing Bill.

Mr. MASTERMAN: In view of the fact that this Report contains perhaps 15 different recommendations, one of which he has stated he himself intends to repudiate and most of which he has not commented on at all, should he not in justice submit to the House what policy he proposes to adopt?

Mr. WHEATLEY: I have submitted to the House the advice I got from the building industry. I submitted the portions of that advice to which the Government intend to give effect. The remaining part of the Report was the fact that they were prepared to give us a certain number of houses in return for our obligation to accept them.

Mr. MASTERMAN: Is it not a fact that the conditions under which those houses should be given were embodied in a series of recommendations and we do not know to this day, and apparently we shall not know when we go into Committee, whether those conditions have been accepted by the Government or not?

Mr. WHEATLEY: The right hon. Gentleman can judge of what has been accepted by the Government by reading the terms of the Bill.

Sir K. WOOD: Are we to understand that all the recommendations in the Report except those contained in the Bill have been rejected by the right hon. Gentleman?

Mr. WHEATLEY: The right hon. Gentleman must use his own discretion.

Mr. MASTERMAN: Will the right hon. Gentleman accept Amendments proposed in the House that those recommendations shall be included in the Bill unless he has any particular objection to any one of them?

Mr. WHEATLEY: I shall have to consider any Amendment that is submitted.

Mr. E. BROWN: Does the right hon. Gentleman propose in carrying out those recommendations to carry out one of the most vital ones, namely, to have a new national survey, as recommended in the Report? It is not mentioned in the Bill.

Mr. WHEATLEY: I do not intend to carry out under the auspices of the Bill anything that is not contained in the Bill.

BLIND PERSONS ACT, 1920.

Mr. T. HENDERSON: 45.
asked the Prime Minister whether it is the intention of the Government to introduce legislation at an early date to amend the Blind Persons Act, 1920?

Mr. CLYNES: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave him on the 19th June. As he will appreciate, it would not in any case be possible, in view of the state of Parliamentary business, to deal with this matter before the Recess.

OLD AGE PENSIONS BILL.

Mr. R. MORRISON: 48.
asked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been drawn to a statement made at Apperley Bridge, on Saturday last, by the First Commissioner of Works that, owing to the congestion of business, the Bill removing the thrift disqualification on old age pensioners would be delayed until the Autumn Session; and whether he will give an assurance that, so far as the Government is concerned, everything possible will be done to place this Bill on the Statute Book before the Vacation?

Mr. CLYNES: My right hon. Friend informs me that he did not intend to give the impression indicated in the first part of the question. As regards the second part, the Government intend to do all in their power to secure the passage of this Bill into law before Parliament rises next month.

Sir K. WOOD: Is it not a fact that the First Commissioner of Works said it was not owing to the congestion of business, but owing to the deliberate tactics of the Opposition, that this Bill was being hung up?

Mr. CLYNES: The first part of my answer is a reply to that supplementary question.

RAILWAYS (ELECTRIFICATION).

Mr. HANNON: 49.
asked the Prime Minister whether he is now in a position to inform the House of the progress which is being made with schemes for the electrification of railways following upon the negotiations which have been in process between him and the chairmen and general managers of railway companies?

The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Mr. Gosling): I have been asked to answer this question. As the hon. Member is aware, various schemes of railway elec-
trification are now in progress. I am not, however, in a position to announce that any extensive new schemes have been decided upon by the companies recently.

Mr. HANNON: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that the Prime Minister himself has said again and again that these schemes of electrification would be the first consideration of a Labour Government; and what steps are being taken to secure that the railway companies shall adopt a satisfactory scheme of electrification?

Colonel ASHLEY: Has the hon. Gentleman been in communication with the directors of the railway companies in order to press the urgency of this question upon them?

Mr. GOSLING: I have asked the railway companies to do all they can, but I have no power in the matter.

Mr. HANNON: I beg to give notice that I shall raise this matter on the first available opportunity on the Motion for the Adjournment.

EARLY CLOSING ASSOCIATION.

Mr. HOFFMAN: 63.
asked the Minister of Health the total sum contributed by local authorities to the funds of the Early Closing Association; whether he is aware that this body is an employers' association; if he is prepared to sanction the contribution from the rates of sums to support the propaganda of associations of employés providing such propaganda meets with the approval of the local authorities and his Department?

Mr. WHEATLEY: As regards the first part of the question, sanction has been given to 26 contributions of one guinea each. I cannot answer the latter part of the question without knowing what my hon. Friend has in mind.

Mr. HOFFMAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this body was engaged in propaganda on behalf of the Daylight Saving Bill? Supposing that the Shop Assistants' Union engaged in propaganda against the Daylight Saving Bill, would they be able to get contributions from the local authorities?

Sir K. WOOD: Before the right hon. Gentleman replies, may I ask if he will have regard to this matter, and especially to the fact that this is a hypothetical question?

Mr. HOFFMAN: It is not.

Mr. WHEATLEY: Yes, I will give consideration to any application of a reasonable character that comes before me.

LUNACY LAW.

Mr. R. RICHARDSON: 65.
asked the Minister of Health what schemes are in contemplation for the building of new asylums and other mental institutions; in view of the declaration in 1922 of a surplus of 18,000 beds, will he explain why such extension is necessary; and whether it is the intention of the Board of Control to offer this increased accommodation to uncertified cases for the purpose of retaining them under their own authority instead of encouraging the provision of hospitals apart from lunacy, and run by the health committees of local authorities for the benefit of slight and non-dangerous cases, where they could recover without risk of stigma?

Mr. WHEATLEY: Only one scheme for the building of a new mental hospital is in contemplation, but further accommodation will be needed in the near future. The figure of 18,000 beds was an estimate made at the end of 1920; but, for various reasons, certain schemes then foreshadowed were not proceeded with. On the 1st January in the present year there were, in fact, only 4,754 vacant beds. As the average annual increase of certified patients during the last two years has been at the rate of 3,265, it is obvious that further provision is necessary. The question whether provision should be made for the early treatment of eases of mental disorder without certification is one of the principal matters referred to the Royal Commission recently appointed.

Mr. RICHARDSON: Is it intended that these incipient cases should come under the Lunacy Board or under the Health Committee?

Mr. WHEATLEY: I must await the advice of the Royal Commission.

Mr. RICHARDSON: 66.
also asked the Minister of Health if his attention has been called to the remarks of Lord Justice Scrutton, on the occasion of the appeal against Harnett, in regard to the necessity for a thorough examination into the grounds on which an alleged lunatic is imprisoned as well as the desirability that he should at certain intervals during detention have the opportunity of demanding an independent investigation into his case; and, in the interests of justice to the public, will he take steps to institute a court of appeal for those imprisoned in asylums, after the analogy of the court of appeal provided for other classes of prisoners?

Mr. WHEATLEY: The points raised in this question come within the terms of reference of the Royal Commission on Lunacy and Mental Disorder, which has just been appointed; and any action in the matter should, I think, be deferred until the Royal Commission has reported.

PAUPERS' BODIES (DISSECTION).

Mr. PENNY: 68.
asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that his Department has officially approached the Kingston Board of Guardians with a view to making arrangements for that authority to hand over the bodies of dead friendless paupers to the London hospitals for dissection purposes; in view of the odium which such a step throws upon the guardians, many of whom are averse to the proposal, will he reconsider the whole matter; and will he say whether similar overtures have been made to other hoards of guardians throughout the country?

Mr. WHEATLEY: As the answer is somewhat long, I will circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. PENNY: I am hardly satisfied with that answer. I want to know why the Ministry have singled out these friendless paupers alone. If these bodies are required, cannot they get lunatics and criminals? Are the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues prepared to will their bodies? I think an examination of their craniums might be useful.

Viscount CURZON: Are the facts correct as stated in the first part of the question?

Mr. WHEATLEY: There is an explanation necessary in connection with the question.

Viscount CURZON: Are they correct?

Mr. WHEATLEY: You will have the reply.

Viscount CURZON: Why cannot you answer whether the facts are correct or not?

Following is the answer promised:

Yes, Sir, the application to Kingston Guardians was made with my authority, and in this matter I have followed the invariable practice of my predecessors of all parties and of successive Home Secretaries with whom the responsibility under the Anatomy Acts rested prior to the transfer of this duty to the Minister of Health. I recognise the very natural objections which such a proposal must at first sight provoke, but I am satisfied that there is no alternative which would not have disastrous effects on surgical and medical education, and ultimately on the treatment of the sick. The effective teaching of anatomy and operative surgery, which form an essential part of medical education, will become impossible unless the necessary subjects can be made available for pratical instruction. If anatomy cannot be taught by the examination of the dead it will have to be learned by experiment on the living; and except in the case of the comparatively small number of students who could afford to go abroad for their anatomical study, young practitioners would be compelled to acquire by experimenting on their patients the knowledge which it would have been impossible to impart to them in the medical schools. Many other unions throughout the country, including those adjacent to Kingston, are co-operating with the Department in this matter, and I am glad to learn that it is generally recognised by the guardians that the poor would be the first to suffer if medical students could not obtain the necessary teaching without going abroad for it. I would add that the. Anatomy Acts contain detailed provisions as to the conditions under which bodies are to be used for this purpose, and these provisions are stringently enforced under the constant supervision of His Majesty's Inspector of Anatomy. All bodies used for this purpose are duly interred within the pre-
scribed period after a religious service appropriate to the denomination to which the deceased belonged, and the place of burial is carefully recorded. It is impracticable to rely for this purpose upon those who voluntarily leave their bodies by will to be used for anatomical teaching, since the number is wholly insufficient. I would add that the reason for seeking the co-operation of the guardians is not the poverty of the persons concerned, but the fact that they have no known or traceable relatives to claim the body for burial, and therefore there is no one to be distressed by the use of the body for purposes which are vitally necessary to the proper teaching of medicine.

TUBERCULOSIS.

Mr. R. MORRISON: 75.
asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that in many parts of the country persons recommended for admission to sanatoria are frequently kept waiting for months, thus decreasing their chances of recovery and endangering the health of their friends and relatives; and whether he has any information that the Circular issued by his Department in February last, promising grants in aid of approved proposals for the development of the health services, is likely to result in a substantial addition to the available accommodation for the treatment of this disease?

Mr. WHEATLEY: I am aware that in some areas there is a considerable waiting list of certain classes of tuberculous patients recommended for admission to residential institutions, but I have no information to show that the position is as suggested by my hon. Friend. The answer to the second part of the question is "Yes."

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: 82.
asked the Minister of Health if he has taken any steps to ascertain the real value of the Spahlinger treatment as a cure for tuberculosis; if so, will he state the result of his inquiries; and whether or not ample supplies of the serum will be available for all sufferers in this country?

Mr. WHEATLEY: As regards the first part of the question, I have already stated that all such inquiries have been made by my Department as have been practice-
able in the absence of a supply of M. Spahlinger's preparations for scientific investigation. The results of these inquiries do not enable me to pronounce an opinion as to the efficacy of the treatment, but they are sufficient to indicate the desirability of a scientific investigation whenever a supply of the preparations is forthcoming. I regret that I am still without information as to when any such supply will be available in this country.

Mr. N. CHAMBERLAIN: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether he has obtained from M. Spahlinger any formula of the preparation of his serum?

Mr. WHEATLEY: I had a personal interview with M. Spahlinger, and I pressed him very strongly for that, but he was either unable or unwilling to comply with that request.

ANTE-NATAL CLINICS (MEDICAL OFFICERS).

Mr. COSTELLO: 81.
asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that in certain districts the ante-natal and other clinics are not so successful as they otherwise would be, owing to a natural disinclination on the part of many women to go themselves or to take their adolescent daughters to clinics which are under the charge of men medical officers or assistant medical officers of health, especially in those districts where there is a woman assistant medical officer available for such work; and whether he will take steps to ensure that, at any rate, in districts where there are already women assistant medical officers, the work in connection with women and the older girls shall be undertaken by the women medical officers and not by the men, and that upon vacancies occurring in public health appointments, the duties of which consist wholly or mainly of the kind of work above mentioned, such vacancies shall be filled by women in preference to men?

Mr. WHEATLEY: I have no information to support the statement in the first part of the question. As regards the second part, while I favour the employment of women medical officers to take charge of ante-natal clinics, I am not
prepared to require that this should be done in all cases.

Mrs. WINTRINGHAM: Is it not a fact that, in the last 12 months, there have been at least three instances where, when vacancies have occurred, the posts have been given to men?

Mr. WHEATLEY: I have not the information, but I have no reason to doubt that statement.

Mr. COSTELLO: Will the right hon. Gentleman cause inquiries to be made with a view to ascertaining what were the reasons for this retrograde and reactionary change?

Lieut.-Colonel FREMANTLE: Will not the right hon. Gentleman admit the fact that many women prefer to be treated by men, and that in many cases it is better to have men?

Mr. WHEATLEY: I will make myself as well informed as possible on the subject.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Mr. BALDWIN: Can the Deputy Leader of the House say how late he proposes that the House should sit to night and what is the business in respect of which he proposes to suspend the Eleven o'clock Rule?

Mr. CLYNES: In addition to the items of business previously mentioned, others have been communicated through the usual channels, namely, the Agricultural Wages [Regulation] Money Resolution; the Prevention of Eviction Bill, Lords Amendments; and the Telegraph [Money] adjourned Debate on the Financial Resolution. In view of the late hour to which the House carried on its work this morning, it would not be reasonable to ask the House to sit very late to-night. On getting the suspension of the Eleven o'clock Rule, we shall ask the House to sit not later than 12 o'clock. I hope that we may be able to get through our business by 11.30.

Mr. MONTAGUE: Does not the right hon. Gentleman consider that the time has arrived to reconsider the methods under which the business of this House is conducted. I refer particularly to the waste of time by dilletante people who
pay other people to do the real work for them, so that we have to sit here until 6 o'clock in the morning in order to get the real work of this House done? Is it not time that consideration should be given to this sort of nonsense? The time that is wasted is terrible.

Mr. SPEAKER: I understand that the House got through a good deal of business last night.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Can the right hon. Gentleman make any statement as to whether the Government proposes to accept the Lords Amendments to the Prevention of Eviction Bill?

Mr. CLYNES: At the moment I can only say that I understand the promoters of the Bill, as well as the Government, desire to save as much of the Bill as possible and that, therefore, it is probable the Lords Amendments will be agreed to.

Ordered,
That the Proceedings on Government Business be exempted at this day's Sitting from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House)."—[Mr. Clynes.]

CONSOLIDATION BILLS (NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE BILL [Lords]).

Report from the Joint Committee, in respect of the National Health Insurance Bill [Lords] (pending in the Lords), brought up and read.

Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

BILLS REPORTED.

Keighley Corporation (Trolley Vehicles) Provisional Order Bill,

Reported, with Amendments [Provisional Order confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.

Bill, as amended, to be considered To-morrow.

Pier and Harbour Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill,

Reported, with Amendments [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.

Bill, as amended, to be considered To-morrow.

Ministry of Health Provisional Order Confirmation (Stratford - upon - Avon Extension) Bill [Lords],

Reported, without Amendment [Provisional Order confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.

Bill to be read the Third time Tomorrow.

Sutton Harbour Bill [Lords],

Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

Wakefield Corporation Bill [Lords],

Reported, with Amendments, from the Local Legislation Committee (Section B); Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

REGISTRATION OF SHIPS, ETC., BILL,

"to consolidate and amend the Law relating to the registration, ownership, measurement, tonnage, and national character of merchant ships and to kindred matters; and for purposes connected therewith," presented by Mr. SEXTON; supported by Mr. March, Mr. Benjamin Smith, Mr. Wignall, and Mr. Short; to be read a Second time upon Wednesday, 30th July, and to be printed. [Bill 198.]

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.

That they have agreed to,

Great Western Railway (Additional Powers) Bill, with Amendments.

Amendments to—

Aire and Calder Navigation Bill [Lords], without Amendment.

That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to amend the Law with respect to the management of the Imperial Institute." [Imperial Institute Bill [Lords.]

Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act for the protection of the names, uniforms, and badges of the associations incorporated by Royal charter." [Chartered Associations (Protection of Names and Uniforms) Bill [Lords.]

And also a Bill, intituled, "An Act to consolidate the enactments relating to town planning in England and Wales." [Town Planning Bill [Lords.]

CHINA INDEMNITY (APPLICATION) BILL.

Reported, with Amendments, from Standing Committee D.

Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 123.]

Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed. [No. 123.]

Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be taken into consideration upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 197.]

Orders of the Day — UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANE (No. 2) BILL.

As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

NEW CLAUSE.—(Amendments to Section 17 of principal Act.)

(1) Section seventeen of the principal Act (which provides for arrangements being made with associations which make payments to their members while unemployed for the payment to such associations of sums out of the unemployment fund equivalent to the amount which those members would have received by way of unemployment benefit), as amended by any subsequent enactment, shall have effect as if in Sub-section (1) thereof there were substituted for the words" which those persons would have received" the words "which those persons would have been entitled to receive."

(2) Where in consequence of a decision of an insurance officer or umpire or a recommendation of a Court of Referees a society or other association has paid to one of its members any sum by way of provision for unemployment, then, if the decision or recommendation is subsequently revised, so much of that sum as represented the amount of benefit which but for the arrangement would have been payable to that person may, unless that person shows that the sum was received by him in good faith and without knowledge that he was not entitled thereto, be recovered, without prejudice to any other remedy, by means of deductions from any benefit or from any payment from the society or other association to which that person thereafter becomes entitled.

Any question whether a person is liable under the provisions of this Sub-section to have a deduction made from any benefit or payment due to him shall be determined in the same manner as a claim for benefit.—[Mr. Show.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

The MINISTER of LABOUR (Mr. Shaw): I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
The purpose of this Amendment is to deal with a matter which is now in some doubt. Under the old Acts, trade unions in certain cases have acted as agents for paying benefits. According to a recent decision of the Umpire, there is some doubt as to who is liable in cases of payments which are made in good faith but against the terms of the Act. Negotiations have taken place between my Department and the trade unions and
this Clause is an attempt to remove existing doubts by providing that the unions who act as agents for the Departments shall be responsible for all payments incorrectly made, but that the Department shall take the responsibility on its side of helping the union to secure repayment of payments incorrectly made when the person who has received those payments has not received them in good faith and has known that the payments were incorrectly made. On the one side the Amendment gives the Department the assurance that all payments incorrectly made will be refunded to the Unemployment Insurance Fund. On the other side the Department undertakes the liability of helping an agent society to recover payments that have been made when the payee has known that he was receiving incorrectly benefits to which he was not entitled. I ask the House to give me this Clause.

Mr. NEIL MACLEAN: I want a little more information on this matter. The societies which act on behalf of the Ministry of Labour pay out what are called associated claims. They only make the payment of that money when the Ministry of Labour itself has intimated to them that that money should be paid over. I understand from this Amendment, and also from the speech which we have heard just now, that all that is going to be done is that the Ministry of Labour is going to assist the associated societies in getting a refund of the money that has been paid wrongfully, but on the recommendations of the Ministry of Labour officials. I think that it should be put the other way round, that as these associated societies have only paid over the money on the recommendation of the Ministry of Labour officials, or of the machinery set up by the Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of Labour should rather guarantee those societies against loss in paying out the money upon their recommendation, and that the Ministry of Labour itself should take these steps itself which it is now saying it will help the unions to take to recover their money. I think that that would be the much fairer method, and while I am not altogether determined to oppose this to the extent of taking a Division, I think that the Minister of Labour, and his assistant, with the great knowledge which both of them possess of the working of the
trade unions in all its different details, might at least have put this Amendment down in a manner that would have been a great safeguard to the trade unions, and secured to them a great deal more of the money which some of the unions have already lost because of recommendations made to the Ministry of Labour officials.

Mr. SHAW: I can only say that this matter has been most carefully considered with the representatives of the trade union societies themselves, and the Clause is an agreed Clause. The umpire gave a decision in a case quite recently which leaves the Department in doubt as to what the actual condition of the law is. In order to clear up that doubt negotiations were entered into with the societies that were administering benefit, and they agreed with us that the societies must take the responsibility of any payments wrongfully made but that we shall help them.

Mr. MACLEAN: Wrongfully made on the instructions of the Ministry of Labour.

Mr. SHAW: If these payments are made directly on the instructions of the Ministry of Labour I do not think that this Clause would affect it, but wrong payments that are made by the society, either carelessly or through misunderstanding of the law, or through fraud, can all be dealt with by this Clause. In the one case, that of carelessness, the society must bear its responsibility. In the case of misunderstanding of the law it takes its own responsibility. In the case of fraud the Ministry prevents the member who has claimed from the society, and received money wrongfully, from simply taking away his book and making his claim against the Employment Exchange and leaving the society with its liability, and it gives power to deduct from future payments the amount which has been wrongfully paid.

Question, "That the Clause be read a Second time," put, and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time.

Mr. SPEAKER: There is an Amendment on the Paper in the name of the hon. Member for Whitehaven (Mr. GavanDuffy). I do not think that it would have the effect which he has in mind. Does he desire to move it to get information from the Minister?

Mr. GAVAN-DUFFY: I beg to move as an Amendment to the proposed new Clause, in line 9, to leave out the words "or umpire."
I have not the least desire to prevent the Ministry of Labour aiding trade unions to recover any payments that have been incorrectly made by the trade unions as such, but the new Clause contains three things. The first is that if through the decision of the judicial officer called the umpire any sums of money are paid for the provision of unemployment benefit that money shall be repaid if his decision or recommendation is subsequently revised. I object absolutely to this House agreeing, or even to the Ministry of Labour proposing to presuppose, that the umpire shall review his own decision. We have been told on innumerable occasions in official documents, and we have been told by the Minister of Labour himself, that the decision of the umpire is final and binding, and, if the decision of the umpire is final and binding, then there ought not to be any Clause put into a new Act that will encourage the umpire to revise his decision. There must be finality somewhere, and the officers of the Department upon whom the finality is imposed ought to have the respect and the confidence of the people who are concerned.
There is very strong suspicion, and I have the gravest suspicion myself, that in the case of Watson, of Cleator Moor, the umpire was invited, if not indeed, directed—I do not know what goes on behind the scenes—to review his own decision. This was not a hasty decision. I appeared before the umpire, and with his usual courtesy, in which he is like his predecessor, he listened to me and my case for over an hour. He cross-examined with the astuteness and ability that belong to him. He took over four weeks to consider his decision, and he gave it then in favour of the applicant on whose behalf I appeared. Then, five or six weeks after that, the umpire was invited or directed—I do not know which—to review his own decision, and he reviewed it and gave a contrary decision, despite the fact that I had evidence there which would lead me to believe, and would lead anyone to believe, that the insurance officers not merely misrepresented to the umpire, but concocted evidence that could not possibly be accurate, because it contradicted the
photographic evidence which I took the opportunity of producing.
4.0 P.M.
My point is this. We do want some one officer under the Minister of Labour to whom we can appeal for a fair and impartial decision, and whose 4.0 P.M. decision we can accept with respect. In the case to which I refer I would have accepted an adverse decision from the umpire with great respect, but, as a matter of fact, I got a decision, as I think rightly, in my favour, and the decision of the umpire was wrongly reversed. The only point for which I am arguing is that this House should not pass a new Clause whereby the umpire will be lifted out of that position of independence which he has held and be invited by the Minister to revise his decision. The new Clause really provides that the umpire shall be invited to revise his decision; otherwise, I cannot see any meaning in it. It is true that some of the trade unions, owing to the private advice given by officials of the Ministry of Labour, have been making payments of unemployment benefit which ought not to have been paid. I do not see that it is very much use crying over spilt milk, and I do say, having regard to the army of spies now employed by the Ministry, and the army of touts now supervising with greatest astuteness the payments that are being made from the Employment Exchanges, that there ought to be one man, the umpire, to whom we can look with respect and whose decisions we can accept as being fair and impartial. Can the House imagine the House of Lords revising its own decisions? They cannot do it. They never dream of doing it. Consequently, I do suggest that the umpire ought to be left as an impartial authority to do justice to all people concerned.

Amendment not seconded.

Clause added to the Bill.

NEW CLAUSE.—(Payment of benefit.)

"Where more than one hundred persons are entitled to benefit, who are normally employed at the same factory or works, the Minister shall, upon the application of the persons entitled to benefit and the employer concerned, arrange for payment of the benefit to be made at the factory or works."—[Mr. Waddington.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. WADDINGTON: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
The object of the Clause is to make general what is now conceded as a privilege in many districts. I speak more particularly of Lancashire, where it is the policy of the Ministry, where there are a number of people employed in a particular factory, to make the payments at the factory. There is a great difficulty in certain other areas where, when they have a period of unemployment, they have to queue up at the Employment Exchange to receive their benefit, though in a neighbouring town people, under similar conditions, have the benefit taken to the works. It is very desirable, in view of the short time which exists in Lancashire, that the policy which is in operation in certain areas should be made general. The difficulties of payment at the Exchanges are very considerable. You have queues which are large, and the people have to stand outside the Exchanges during all sorts of weather. It is impossible, with the insufficiency of the accommodation at the Exchanges, to deal properly with all the applicants. I am sure that the proposal ought to meet with the acceptance of the Minister with his knowledge of Lancashire conditions.
Let me give an illustration from an Employment Exchange in the Rossendale Division, which I represent. In December last year, there were at this particular Employment Exchange 1,100 persons on the register. Of that number, 700 were employed at two particular mills. There was great disturbance in the district owing to the queuing up in bad weather. Representations were made to the then Minister, Sir Montague Barlow, by the town council, the trades council, and the employers concerned that some different method should be employed. Sir Montague Barlow arranged that the payment should be made at these two mills. That took off 700 people, and made it easier for the Exchange to deal with the remaining 400. These payments were made at the works. Two officials from the Exchange went to the mills and made the payment. It was convenient to the officers, and very satisfactory to the work-people and the employers. That went on for two or three months. Then, under the present Minister, an order was sent down that this method was to be discontinued, and these 700 workpeople had to go back and queue up in the streets in order to get their benefit. That resulted
in more trouble in the area. Representations have been made to the Minister to remedy this grievance, and to go back to the system of his predecessor, but so far those representations have been ineffectual.
It is because these representations to the Minister have been ineffective that we now seek to make this compulsory under the conditions of this Clause. There can be no suggestion that it will be difficult, because it has been actually practised in many areas throughout the country, and what is an advantage in one case can surely be equally well done in another case. I hope that the Minister will see that this is a Clause which he can accept. It is one which will bring great relief to many thousands of people and will save many officers from the trouble which arises from not knowing whether this application should be refused or granted. If it be made compulsory, then many operatives in the cotton trade in Lancashire will be grateful to the right hon. Gentleman.

Captain BRASS: I beg to second the Motion.
I do so because I feel in the same way as the hon. Member does, that it is rather unfair that some people should be forced to queue up and go to these Employment Exchanges and that other people should be allowed to receive their unemployment benefit at the works. In my particular constituency, there is a place which is about three miles from the nearest Employment Exchange, and it is over a steep hill. A lot of the operatives are ladies—old ones—who are unable to go this long way, three miles there and three miles back over this steep hill, and in very bad weather. As a result, they wrote to me, and I took the matter up with the late Minister of Labour. He looked into the matter, with the result that these people were paid their unemployment benefit at the particular mill concerned. If they are allowed to receive it there, I do not see any reason why, provided there are enough of them, other people should not have the same privilege. After all, that concession which was given to a number of people ought to have been given to other people in my division as well.
I was approached with a view to trying to get the concession for other people in other parts of the division. That was
refused, and I think rightly refused in some cases, because the number was not enough and the expenses entailed would have been too great. But in this Clause we have put in the number 100, which I think is very reasonable. After all, these people are unemployed through no reason of their own, and they are themselves actually contributing towards the benefit which they are receiving. If they have to go all this long way in the rain—and Lancashire Members will realise that it rains more in that county than in other parts of the country—it really is a very serious thing indeed, especially for the ladies who in a great number of cases are not capable of walking this awfully long way. We only ask the Minister to make the concession where there are 100 people employed in one factory or mill, and the cost entailed would be very small indeed. It could not mean any great cost to ask someone to go to a mill where there are 100 people to pay the benefit instead of asking those 100 people to walk six miles in the rain to receive the benefit. I therefore most earnestly appeal to the Minister of Labour to consider this matter very carefully and see whether he cannot accept the Clause.

Mr. SHAW: I am going to ask the hon. Gentleman who moved and the hon. Gentleman who seconded this new Clause to withdraw it. I have a considerable amount of sympathy with their case, but I suggest that the. Clause in its present form cannot possibly be carried out. The Clause, for instance, proposes that where the employer and 100 workpeople are agreed, the payment shall be made at the works, but, assuming that two workmen living near the Exchange objected, it would be impossible to carry out this method as the Clause is now worded. I am sorry to hear that the system of queuing up, to use the Lancashire expression, is still prevalent, and, while asking the Mover and Seconder to withdraw the Clause, may I give them my personal assurance that the policy of the Ministry will be that, wherever we can avoid the inconvenience of queuing up, and wherever it is administratively possible, we shall make the payments at the mills. It is, however, highly inadvisable to tie the hands of the Minister as to where these payments shall be made. I shall do all I can to meet the common-sense needs of the matter, but
I can imagine cases in which it will be highly inadvisable to make the payments at the mill. There is a certain amount of work that must necessarily, for the sake of efficiency, be done at the Exchange, and where it can be done at the Exchange without inconvenience it ought to be done. I ask for the withdrawal of this Clause, at, the same time giving my personal assurance that I will investigate the cases of which the hon. Members have spoken, and will, as a general rule, attempt to make such provision as will meet the common-sense needs of the case. I know what occurs in a town where suddenly a number of people are thrown on to the register out of all proportion to the capacity of the Exchange or of its staff, but I do ask the House not to tie my hands, and to leave me to deal with the cases as they arise.

Dr. MACNAMARA: I desire to associate myself with what the Minister has said. The purpose of this proposal can be, and is being, achieved by regulation. I was sorry to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Waddington) say that there had been a change in policy. I cannot believe that that can be the case. Wherever it is possible, it is being done. What will happen if the Minister is compelled to send up to the mill a pay clerk who is a member of an Employment Exchange staff which is very much over-worked to-day? I observe that the Minister had, in 1923–24 10,355 local Employment Exchange officers. That was before this Bill, with all its extensions of benefit, was ever contemplated. With all the very much larger operations of this Bill, my right hon. Friend is proposing, in his present Estimate, to cut down that staff to 9,714. He will have to increase it largely if this proposal is going to be carried out efficiently. How is he to send up a pay clerk to the mill in every case, as he will have to do if this is made statutory, when that unfortunate gentleman is already very much overworked in the Exchange, and when his functions will be enormously increased by this present Bill? He cannot be in two places at once. I suggest, with great respect, that this matter should be left to the Minister, and cases such as those which my hon. Friends have brought forward should be put to the Minister. If he is practically
made by Statute to do this when it an be done by regulation, it will do great harm.

Mr. BETTERTON: I venture to think that the Minister of Labour has met quite fairly the point raised by this Amendment. I recollect the cases to which my hon. Friend has referred, and the predecessor of the right hon. Gentleman did make Regulations in certain cases. From the administrative point of view this Clause might be almost unworkable if it were limited to cases in which 100 persons are unemployed. Having regard to the fact that the Minister has said that he is prepared personally to look into cases that may be brought before him in which an arrangement can be made, I suggest that my hon. Friend will be quite safe in accepting the assurance of the Minister.

Mr. WADDINGTON: I accept the offer which the Minister has made, though I hope it will be generously interpreted, and that it will not be necessary for us to trouble him with these cases again. I beg to ask leave to withdraw.

Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

CLAUSE 1.—(Rights of insured persons to unemployment benefit.)

Mr. SPEAKER: I do not propose to call the Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Baronet the Member for Southport (Sir J. Brunner)—in page 2, lines 13 and 14, to leave out the words
he shall nevertheless be entitled to receive benefit,
and to insert instead thereof the words
the Minister may, if it appears to him that, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, it is expedient in the public interest that such an applicant should be allowed to receive benefit, authorise the receipt of benefit by that applicant.

Mr. HANNON: I beg to move, in page 2, lines 13 and 14, to leave out the words
he shall nevertheless be entitled to receive benefit,
and to insert instead thereof the words
the Minister shall have power to authorise the receipt of benefit by such an applicant.
This Amendment is of profound importance from the point of view of the efficient administration of unemployment insurance in this country. The whole structure of
our legislation relating to unemployment insurance up to the present has been on the basis of the Minister having discretion, in the last resort, to approve of unemployment benefit being given. This Bill seeks to establish a legal right to uncovenanted benefit, within, of course, the limiting conditions laid down in the Bill, on the part of every person in this country who may be out of employment for all time, or, at all events, out of employment during the period of the operation of this Bill. I suggest that it was never the intention of those responsible for the earlier Measures of unemployment insurance which were passed through this House that it should be laid down as a permanent legal right of an unemployed man that he should receive unemployment benefit at the expense of the ratepayers and taxpayers of this country. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for North West Camberwell (Dr. Macnamara), who, if I may respectfully say so, has done more for the efficient development of this great social work in this country than any other Member of this House, when he had ample opportunity in the past of expanding, who with every desire to make his Measures as comprehensive as possible, never ventured to undertake a proposition so profoundly against the whole principle of unemployment insurance as the Minister now seeks to embody in this Bill.
The existing statutory conditions with regard to unemployment insurance are as follows: In the first place, there must be payment of 12 contributions under the 1920 Act. In the second place, a man must be continuously unemployed since his application for benefit. Thirdly, he must be capable of and available for work, but unable to find suitable employment. Fourthly, he must not have exhausted his right to benefit under the 1920 Act; and, fifthly, he must take a course of instruction at any particular educational centre if he is required to do so. The existing statutory obligation with regard to the fourth of these conditions has been rigidly observed, and rightly so. It has been always held up to the present that the man must not have exhausted his right. The Minister seeks to bring into this Bill power to give a man uncovenanted benefit without regard to any right which he may or may not previously have had in relation to unemployment insurance.
The disqualifications which have operated up to the present are, first of all, loss of work through stoppage in the case of a trade dispute at the works where the man was employed; secondly, loss of work through misconduct, or where the man performed some act that was against the interest of the industry in which he was engaged; thirdly, that he was an inmate of an institution supported out of public funds; fourthly, that his residence was outside the United Kingdom; and, fifthly, that no contributions had been paid during an insurance year, and that he was in receipt of health insurance benefit or an old age pension. All these are disqualifications under the existing law. But now this Bill lays it down that an insured person who has exhausted his right to covenanted benefit shall be entitled to uncovenanted benefit as a legal right, if and so long as he continues to comply with certain conditions laid down in the Bill. These new statutory conditions strike out an entirely new course of procedure in relation to unemployment and unemployment insurance.
If the Bill were accepted by the House in its present form, it would really be a Measure for the promotion of perpetual pauperism in this country. It would be a Bill to encourage large numbers of people who never desire to work, and who would use every opportunity to live at the expense of the honest workers in the community, to remain out of employment either continuously or, at all events, for long periods of time. In submitting this Amendment to the House, I make no reflection at all upon the great majority of the wage-earning classes in this country. They are, in the vast number of cases, men of great integrity, who desire honestly and honourably to make their living under fair and reasonable conditions, without accepting any form of charity from any source whatever. If the establishment of this legal right to uncovenanted benefit were to become an essential part of the law of this country, it would immediately give direct encouragement to numbers of ne'er-do-wells to become a continuous parasitic element in our public life, and that would be disastrous. On these grounds, and because the acceptance of this principle in this Bill would strike at the very roots of the efficiency of unemployment insurance as a great social and beneficent
influence for the working people of this country, I beg to move this Amendment.

Sir JOHN BRUNNER: I beg to second the Amendment.
I regret that I was not here, Mr. Speaker, when you referred to my Amendment, but these words really amount to the same thing as my Amendment, which restored the words of the Act of 1922. I agree with the hon. Gentleman who spoke last that uncovenanted benefit should not be made a permanent part of unemployment insurance. As a matter of fact, uncovenanted benefit is not insurance. It seems to me that it ought to have been ruled out of order in the 1922 Bill when it was first inserted, and ought to have been put in a separate Bill. National insurance ought to stand by itself, and all other forms of relief ought to be dealt with in a separate Measure. We are now in a state of complete confusion in regard to other kinds of relief, such as Poor Law relief and uncovenanted benefit. They are apt to overlap and come into collision. I would, therefore, suggest to the House that, as the. Bill is now only a temporary Measure, we should leave this uncovenanted benefit as an extra legal right, so to speak, and not make it a permanent part of national unemployment insurance. For these reasons I have pleasure in seconding the Amendment.

Mr. SHAW: This, it is true, is one of the vital principles of the Bill, and we might as well face the position frankly and deal with it. I have tried, in this Bill, to ensure that no decent workman or workwoman out of work shall be unable to draw unemployment pay. In this Bill there is no question of uncovenanted benefit. The benefit is given as a right, and not as a charity. It is given as a statutory right, and not by the volition of any Minister. This Amendment aims at giving the Minister power to say, speaking to one man: "You shall have benefit," and, speaking to another man: "You shall be refused it," although the two men might be conforming to exactly the same conditions. That is what this Amendment pretends to do, and, as a piece of drafting, I venture to suggest to the House that it is extremely bad policy to make the payment of benefit dependent on the will of any Minister. Ministers
change, and you might have one Minister applying one set of rules to the situation, and another applying an entirely different method. I venture to suggest to the House that, apart from all other considerations, a method of that kind is a very bad method indeed. I want, however, to deal not merely with the technicalities of the Amendment itself. It is no use my scoring a debating point on the words of an Amendment; the principle is the thing that matters here. I have deliberately and quite calmly stated to the House on more than one occasion that it is the intention of this Bill to make benefit payable for every week that a genuine workman or workwoman happens to be unemployed.
What virtue is there in saying to a genuine man who has suffered very severely—he could not have exhausted his first period of unemployment benefit without intense suffering—when he is literally down and out financially, "Now you must go for a period of weeks without benefit altogether"? In order to do what? It can be for only one of two things. The man can go to the Poor Law guardians for relief or he can undercut his fellow workmen and sell his labour cheaply. Which of the alternatives does the Mover of the Amendment desire? I have tried in the Bill to put in safeguards of such a character that no work-shy can be paid. I think I have succeeded in doing that, but I want any hon. Member who really believes that the decent man shall be denied benefit, although he is unemployed, to state so openly and to have done with it. The Mover of the Amendment, with a very fine sense of alliteration, talked about this being a Measure for the promotion of perpetual pauperism. There is no pauperism about it. It is an insult to the ordinary working man to call his unemployment benefit anything like charity or pauperism. It is an insult to couple his name and pauperism in any way. We shall make no progress by not facing the facts of the situation, and, above all, by not facing the fact that the vast majority of the working people of this country are as honest as any class in the country, and that they are neither perpetual paupers nor work-shy. It is extremely unwise to starve the 99 honest persons in order to prevent the 100th wicked person from getting something.

Mr. HANNON: I never said anything of the kind.

Mr. SHAW: I do not say that the hon. Gentleman suggested it at all. He did talk about a Measure for the promotion of perpetual pauperism. I suggest to him that this is a Measure for the prevention of pauperism in the case of the majority of the working classes who are undoubtedly as honest as he or I.

Mr. HANNON: I was thinking of the honest man's friends.

Mr. SHAW: There are in all classes of society, from the manual worker upwards and downwards, according to your point of view, work-shys. They are not more numerous among the manual workers than among any other class of society; in fact I think they are rather less numerous. I cannot understand the philosophy of a man who, being afraid that someone, a work-shy, might get benefit, would deliberately deprive the huge majority of the workers of benefit in order to punish that work-shy. That apparently is the policy. We have evidence of the fact that the gaps that existed, the stoppage of benefits that existed, simply meant in many of of the towns that the man who was refused benefit had to go to the Poor Law guardians and the burden was thrown on the locality. I hope that the House will accept neither the principle that the Minister should have a right to say whether or not a man should have benefit, nor the principle that it is necessary at some time to stop a man's benefit, in order to do what? I put that question to anyone who speaks in favour of this Amendment. What is the reason for stopping the benefit? What good purpose would it serve? The only purpose would be to drive to the guardians people who do not want to go there.
There is nothing sacrosanct about the old methods of conducting insurance. It was a brilliant idea that suggested the first Workmen's Insurance Bill and everybody ought to render honour to those who conceived it. But there is nothing pontifical about it. We do not want to worship at the throne of the conceivers of this idea, and to say
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.
We progress occasionally. I suggest that this Bill is sound, common-sense progress, that it is neither economical nor
moral to refuse assistance to those who have suffered the worst from unemployment, and that it is both sound in principle and sound in economy to make certain that the genuine workman who is unemployed through no fault of his own shall at any rate not starve. I ask the House to refuse the principle underlying this Amendment. It is a double-barrelled one. It means that the Minister shall say whether or not the benefit shall be paid, but its intention is to prevent continuous benefit as a desirable thing in the interests of the community.

Sir PHILIP LLOYD-GREAME: I agree with the Minister in one thing that he said, namely, that, in considering the Amendments on the Paper, we should face the real facts. I ask the House to turn to what are the real facts and to get away from generalisations. I ask the House to accept this Amendment, because it is a natural, proper and logical consequence of the Amendment to Clause 1 which was carried in Committee. When the Minister came to the House with his Bill originally he was proposing a Bill which was permanent in its character. Many of us in the Debate on the Second Reading stated that we thought that you ought not to deal in a period of acute emergency, when you could not ascertain the facts correctly, with insurance for the whole of the future and the return to normal times. That view was accepted in Committee by a large majority, and an Amendment proposed by the right hon. Member for Rusholme (Mr. Masterman) was carried. The House will see that at the beginning of the first Clause there are now included the words
Until the thirtieth day of June, nineteen hundred and twenty-six."—
Therefore, for all practical purposes the view of the Committee was that this should be made a temporary Measure for the period between now and June, 1926. The object of the Amendment, carried in Committee, was that we should continue the emergency legislation, the emergency provisions, the emergency powers, now in force in all their fullness during that emergency period. It really is no good, in view of that fact, to come to the House and utter generalisations as to who is to suffer. If the present Amendment is inserted, there is not one man or one woman who, during the currency of this Bill up to June, 1926, will be deprived of benefit
which would have been obtainable if the Amendment were not inserted. That is a complete reply to the contention which the Minister has put forward. He is asking the House to reject the present Amendment on the suggestion that, if it is carried, someone is to be deprived of benefit. I challenge him to contradict my statement that if the present Amendment is accepted there will not be during the currency of this Bill, when passed, one man or woman who will be deprived of benefit to the full amount.
What the Minister really wishes to do is to prejudge the whole of the future. That has to be settled when we come to the end of June, 1926, and to a new Insurance Bill, when we shall, with knowledge of the facts, be able to recast, I hope, in a much more satisfactory way, which will give satisfaction to a far larger number of the great mass of contributors to the fund, the whole of the insurance scheme. There is a matter of principle here. I think that uncovenanted benefit is absolutely right in an emergency period. But it is not insurance. The whole principle of unemployment insurance has been that when a man draws his benefit as of right, the amount to which he is entitled shall bear a relation not merely to the general solvency of the fund, but also to the number of contributions that he has paid. I observe that in a memorandum, issued by the Minister of Labour on 13th February, 1924, containing his directions to local employment committees, he says:
The scheme of unemployment insurance as contained in the Unemployment Insurance Act of 1920 is based on the contributory principle, i.e., contributions are payable by insured contributors to the unemployment fund and benefit is payable out of that fund in strict proportion to contribution.
He then goes on to say:
It is obviously important that the unemployment fund should be restored to solvency at the earliest possible moment, and that a return should be made to the strict principle of contributory insurance.
That is in the same famous document which contained the reference to aliens. It is right for two reasons. If, in the first place, you allow as a covenanted right practically unlimited benefit to be received, that really is not unemployment insurance; it is taxing the people who are in an industry, whether the employers or the workmen, for general relief. That is a very different thing from the
principle of contributory insurance, and, once accepted, it would very likely be a very serious blow to the whole principle of contributory insurance. I ask the House to take this further point into consideration. If you make this permanent, not only are you abrogating that principle, but it must be remembered that there is only a certain amount to go round out of the fund, and that we shall have to consider on later Amendments the financial solvency of this fund as being very hardly tried at the present moment and by the provisions which are inserted in this Bill.
Let the House remember that there are 12,000,000 people contributing to this fund. If you perpetuate uncovenanted benefit as a right for an unlimited period, you may be giving an advantage to a certain number of people, but you are depriving yourself of the power of giving any alternative benefit to the great mass of contributors. I ask those hon. Members who believe in contributory insurance whether you may not be seriously interfering with the willingness of everyone concerned to continue contributing, if you are not going to spread the benefits more widely. For all these reasons I submit that the Amendment should be accepted. Let me add one other point. The Minister has said that he does not want this matter to be left to his discretion, but that he wishes it to be given as a right. How inconsistent the Minister is! On the last new Clause the Minister declined to accept the proposal made because he said that a discretion must be left to the Minister.

Mr. CLIMIE: It is not suggested that the two cases are parallel.

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: Surely if the Minister may exercise his discretion in one case he may exercise it in another. The whole point of the Minister's observations on the last proposal was that it should be left to his discretion to do what was right, and the point of his observations on this proposal is that you cannot trust the Minister with discretion. Surely neither he nor his predecessors nor his successors are so intellectually abnormal that while they can be trusted with discretion under five Clauses of a Bill, they cannot be trusted under the sixth Clause. In Committee, my right hon. Friend took us through the Bill and
pointed out Clause after Clause where the Minister wanted discretion. For instance, there is Clause 3, where he has a general discretion ranging over a year, and I think there is an Amendment by the hon. Member who just interrupted me, on the Order Paper at this moment, seeking not to take away the Minister's discretion, but to extend it for another year.

Mr. CLIMIE: On a different, matter.

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: Surely if he is discreet enough to have discretion on one matter, he is discreet enough to have discretion on all matters.

Mr. MACLEAN: You did not give discretion to your Ministers.

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: Yes, we gave discretion to our Ministers. Really the hon. Member should learn something about this Measure before coming to discuss it. There was a discretion in the Minister; that was the law as passed and administered by my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Camberwell (Dr. Macnamara), and it was the law as passed and administered by the Minister of Labour under the last Government, and the only reason the Minister has put in the Clause dealing with this matter is to alter the law as it was administered by his predecessor. I venture to say that this is, above all others, a case where the discretion should be kept because it is a case where you ought to give, in an emergency period, full uncovenanted benefit to people who really need it, but where in the interests of the solvency of the fund and in the interests of the contributors you should not give it where it is not needed. The Minister says "What an outrageous and appalling thing this is." This principle of benefits received bearing a direct relation to contributions paid is to be found in every single trade union benefit scheme administered by trade unions in this country.

Dr. MACNAMARA: My right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour is so transparently honest and so manifestly sincere in all he does and we so greatly admire him for it, that I think it a great pity he did not get closer to the purpose of this Amendment. He gave us some unexceptionable general dicta, but they had not much to do with this Amendment. He says that every poor man and woman out of work is to have benefit within this
Measure as of right. That is his case. His hon. Friends behind hint endorse that case, but they add "contributions or no contributions." [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear:"] There you are. That is the difference between us in a sentence. Of course these people have all to get relief, but the issue is: Shall they get relief as a right out of this fund, even though they have no contributions at all? That is the point. My hon. Friends above the Gangway have added a footnote to the Minister's speech by pointing out that their view is that benefits should be given out of this fund, not as a discretionary matter, but as a statutory right, whether the recipients have made contribution or not. The Minister does not go as far as that—I will say that for him—but that is where his friends are leading him. The Minister says he does not want any discretion on his shoulders. He says, in effect, that those shoulders are far too puny for the weight of discretion to rest upon them, but, as a matter of fact, under Subsection (2) of Clause 3 he takes upon himself an absolute discretion in this very matter of granting benefit, and not in a different matter, right down to the end of June, 1926. However, that is a mere debating point, and I do not press it.
The importance of this Amendment has been minimised by an Amendment carried in Committee providing that this scheme is to come to an end in June, 1926, and that we are to build up a new scheme. Therefore it is not so important as when it was first introduced, because when first introduced this scheme was to be the permanent insurance for the future. If I do not make quite so much of this question now, it is because of the very salutary effect of the Amendment, which is to make this an emergency and temporary Measure, lock, stock and barrel. The Minister's position is perfectly simple. He says, "I will give these men a statutory right to benefit out of this fund, and I will have no discretion at all." The motive is excellent, but can you give a statutory right from this fund on a too slender contribution qualification or on no contribution qualification at all? That is the issue. If you do so, then, although this scheme has done some wonderful things in its time, you will turn it into a compassionate fund. I am not saying that these people should not have benefit. All I am asking is:
Can you give it from this fund in the way I have indicated? If you do so, I say you are blowing the scheme sky high as a compulsory threefold contributory insurance scheme. Remember, this is a fund built up by very heavy contributions from the people who are in work and from the employers. My right hon. Friend the Minister knows that, as far as the men are concerned, many of them have been on short time, and can very ill afford the payments which they have been making so long and so cheerfully.
You will be making this a compassionate fund to an extent. This is not entirely uncovenanted benefit and, I think, on that point there is a certain amount of misunderstanding. These men, for whom the Minister is now pleading, who are to have the right to claim this benefit, must have made some 30 contributions out of a possible 155, but it is uncovenanted benefit to this extent, that the contribution qualification is extremely slight. To come down to the brass tacks of the matter, you are going to give the man who has made 30 contributions out of 155 the right to claim, week by week, without intermission, benefits up to the end of June, 1926. Of course, if you are in favour of a non-contributory scheme as the hon. Members behind the Minister are, you can do so cheerfully, but if you are in favour of a contributory scheme it is a different matter. Although probably no attention will be paid to me, I say I am sure you will do great harm to the working classes of this country if and when you destroy the threefold contributory scheme. If you are in favour of a contributory scheme and of running it as an insurance fund on the lines of every trade union out-of-work fund, you will be very careful before you give a statutory right out of this fund upon a very slender contribution qualification or indeed upon no such qualification at all. You will say as the Minister does say in Sub-section (2) of Clause 3, that the man who has not the proper qualification, the ordinary qualification of the trade union out-of-work scheme, may get benefit if he is genuinely seeking work, but cannot claim it as a statutory right; that this is not a compassionate fund, but a fund for a specific pur-
pose; that if a man has made contributions he has a right, but if he has not made contributions he has not a right.

Mr. CLIMIE: That is not the point. A man has the right to claim who fulfils the conditions.

Dr. MACNAMARA: I think I have stated the conditions fairly and I am referring to the case of a man who in the course of three years has made only thirty weekly contributions.

Mr. CLIMIE: That is an exceptional case.

Dr. MACNAMARA: Certainly I am taking an extreme case, but that man can claim as a right benefit right down to the end of June, 1926.

Mr. CLIMIE: What was the old scheme?

Dr. MACNAMARA: The old scheme provided in such cases where the contribution qualification was slender or where it did not exist, that the man should have benefit, but it was in the discretion of the Minister just as the Minister in this case proposes to take discretion in Subsection (2) of Clause 3. I do not say and no one in the House says, that these poor men should have nothing, but what we are saying is that you cannot take it out of this fund and give it to them as a statutory right. If you do so you will in the end break this fund.

Mr. STEPHEN: That is a prophecy.

Dr. MACNAMARA: Yes, it is, and I admit that, prophecy has been described as the most gratuitous form of error, but I am quite convinced that if you give a statutory right except on the ordinary contribution qualification, you will destroy this as an insurance fund and make it a compassionate fund. I do not suppose anyone will say that these men should not have something, but inasmuch as they have not paid due contributions, it should be in the discretion of the Minister. That is the beginning and end of all this discussion. I shall certainly support the Amendment in the interests of a fund for which I have a certain responsibility because I helped to build it up. It has done its work nobly through a long period of pressure and I am perhaps unduly jealous of any movement which I think
will be fatal to the continuance of the contributory system. Hon. Members above the Gangway do not share my anxiety and are quite cheerful about this proposal, because they are in favour of a non-contributory system, but I am not in favour of such a system and I shall certainly vote in favour of the Amendment.

5.0 P.M.

Mr. MACLEAN: Play has been made by both the last speakers about the impending bankruptcy of the fund if the words appearing in the Bill are allowed to remain and the Amendment is rejected, but I would remind the right hon. Member for North-West Camberwell (Dr. Macnamara), who has quite a long experience of the operation of these Acts, and who is, I believe, more responsible than any other Member of any of the three Governments which have been in office since 1918 for bringing Unemployment Insurance Bills before this House, and engineering them through to become Acts of Parliament, that the individuals referred to here are not individuals newly coming into this scheme.

Mr. MACNAMARA: I said so.

Mr. MACLEAN: Consequently, many of them have contributed for a number of years, some of them since the commencement of the unemployment insurance scheme, and these people surely have a right to unemployment insurance when you have a period of abnormal unemployment in this country, because, as the right hon. Gentleman himself said on several occasions in this House, when piloting through the very first Bill on this subject that he brought into the House giving the uncovenanted benefit to those people, those people had been good contributors in the past to this Fund, the Fund by their contributions had a surplus of many millions, those millions belonged by right to the contributors, and, having come upon an evil day, it was their right to have a share of that Fund. That share was given to those contributors.

Dr. MACNAMARA: Not as a right. I said at the discretion of the Minister, but not as a right.

Mr. MACLEAN: At the discretion of the Minister and as a right are two different propositions, but the right was always observed to those individuals,
contingent upon them satisfying the necessary qualifications that were set out, and those qualifications are in this Bill again.

Dr. MACNAMARA: No.

Mr. MACLEAN: They are practically the same as appeared in the 1920 Act, which the right hon. Gentleman himself piloted through the House. Those people, as the right hon. Gentleman admitted, built up that Fund, and, given good times, as he also said, they would pay back into the Fund the sums taken out of it. Surely then, if they are expected to pay back into the Fund something which they have received out of it, they have a right to benefit. What are the provisions laid down that these people have to observe so that they shall have uncovenanted benefit? There is, first, normal employment such as would make a man an employed person in the meaning of the principal Act; secondly, insurable employment, in normal times, suitable to his capacities, and so on. Every one of those provisions that he must satisfy the Committees that he has observed before he receives uncovenanted benefit are in this Bill, showing that he has paid in in the past and that he will pay in, given good times, again.
I do not see why the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hendon (Sir P Lloyd-Greame) should think he has scored a point against the Minister in this connection. This is not a permanent Bill. Instead of its being a permanent Bill, you have secured that it should only be a temporary Measure, covering the particular period over which you consider that this abnormal unemployment is going to run. We all hope that this abnormal unemployment will have ended before 1926. The right hon. Gentleman opposite wants the Minister of Labour to accept this Amendment to give him discretionary powers, but what are these discretionary powers? What would the words of the Amendment mean if they were put into this Bill? How far would they carry? How are those schemes considered to-day? They are considered by Committees, not by the Minister, and we find all the safeguards that are necessary already in the Bill. Some of them are even stricter than the safeguards brought in by the right hon. Member for North-West Camberwell and the late Minister of Labour. It is
not the Minister's discretion. The words as they stand give the discretionary power to the local committees and to the courts of referees to withdraw benefit which those people who are unemployed think they should receive, if those conditions set out in this particular Sub-section are not satisfactorily fulfilled. What greater safeguards can you have than those? They are the things, and not the discretionary power of any Minister, that have safeguarded you in the past.
I hope the hon. and right hon. Members opposite are not going to press this Amendment to a Division. If they do, I shall support the Minister of Labour in keeping the words as they are, in spite of what has been said by the right hon. Gentleman that in another Clause I seek to give the Minister discretionary power. I do, but on a very different question, a question which is much more strictly safeguarded even than this. I hope the hon. Members opposite will not press this to a Division, and even although the right hon. Member for North-West Camberwell promises support, I do not know that he will take many of those on the benches behind him with him.

Mr. TREVELYAN THOMSON: I hope the House will support the attitude taken by the Committee upstairs. When the Minister accepted the limitation of period in the Bill, I thought it was understood that the rest of the Committee were, generally speaking, agreed in favour of the uncovenanted benefit and making it a right and not a charity. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why?"] Because it is desired by many of us to give security to the worker in industry that he should not be the victim either of cold charity or of the Poor Law. The various parties in this House have, on numerous platforms, stated their great desire to give security to the worker. Is it going to be given by leaving him to the tender mercies of the Minister or of local employment committees? The right hon. Member for Hendon (Sir P. LloydGreame) said that not one would be deprived of benefit if this Amendment were passed, but, if that is the case, why trouble to press the Amendment? I submit that the experience of the administration of uncovenanted benefit during the last few years points entirely
in the opposite direction. Those who have been up against the individual cases know of extreme hardships and real suffering brought on many innocent people, willing workers, who have been deprived of this uncovenanted benefit, and this Bill seeks to remove that injustice.
The right hon. Member for North-West Camberwell (Dr. Macnamara) said it was all a question of what Fund the claim should come upon. I agree with him, but I want to put another view to the House. I think that the view of the individual himself is important, but I think also that the view of the locality is equally important, and that if you deprive an insured person of the right to this benefit, you are thrusting him on to the guardians, and you are going to pile up a large debt on the local ratepayer, which is going to be heavier in the future than it has been in the past. One object of this particular Clause is to relieve the local authorities from that burden of unemployment which is due to the gap period and the refusal of the insurance benefit. I submit that it is a national charge and that it is only right, in the interests of the ratepayers as well as of the insured persons, that this burden should be borne by the Insurance Fund and not thrust upon the local rates. The suggestion has been made that it was a compassionate allowance, but surely it is clear that the insured person will pay the amount when he gets back to work, and, therefore, it is an insurance fund, and the industry itself is going to bear the burden, as it rightly should. I hope the House will maintain the attitude of the Committee upstairs.

Mr. MASTERMAN: Might I ask the Mover of the Amendment if he could not see his way to withdraw it? He will remember that in Committee upstairs we united and carried by a considerable majority a decision that the Bill should only be a temporary Measure, lasting for a few months. It was on that decision that I think a number of my friends voted upstairs against the particular Amendment now before the House. The Mover himself said that he has no wish to interfere with uncovenanted benefit until the whole thing is reconsidered, but this Amendment will interfere with what is called uncovenanted benefit, or it may do if you have another Minister in office,
which many Members of this House no doubt desire, and I would appeal that we might rather keep to our decision as to the limitation of time, and then reconsider the whole question, than go back on the decision which was made in Committee upstairs.

Sir K. WOOD: I am sure the House must be rather bewildered by the varied advice we get from the benches opposite. I understand that the right hon. Member for North-West Camberwell Dr. Macnamara), who, if I may say so, made a very effective and powerful speech, said he would vote for this Amendment.

Dr. MACNAMARA: Certainly.

Sir K. WOOD: The right hon. Gentleman next to him thinks the Amendment should be withdrawn. Of course, it is a matter of individual opinion for which each right hon. Gentleman must take his own responsibility, as also the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. T. Thomson), but I do want to make this appeal to the House. The hon. Member for Middlesbrough referred to the necessity, to-day especially, of obtaining security for the worker. I venture to say that one of the best securities for the worker is a safe and reasonable contributory insurance scheme. I know nothing which appeals more to the great quality which, I believe, is possessed by the people of this country, than a scheme of this character. It is an easy thing, and perhaps a popular thing, to say, "Oh, well, let these men make this application as a right, rather than leave it to the discretion of the Minister." It is a matter than can be easily said, and, no doubt, looked at from a cursory point of view, may be popular on certain platforms, but I venture to say that you will be doing a great harm to a fund of this kind if you allow a quite natural sympathy to interfere with a scheme of this kind. In the first place, you ought to protect the contributors. I do not think many hon. Members will disagree when I say that at the present time the amounts which are paid, in one form or another, by the workers of this country for insurance, for their trade unions, and for their friendly societies have now reached a very large sum indeed, and it has pretty nearly reached the breaking-point. If you examine for one moment the amount which has to go out, of a man's
wages every week in all these different ways, it comes to a very large sum indeed.
What is the direction to which you are leading in advocating the sort of suggestion that the hon. Member for Middlesbrough made? If you depart from the contributory system, and begin giving as a right to people who do not contribute, in the end it simply means that one of two things is going to happen to this fund. Either the fund is going into liquidation, or you have to increase the contributions. The contributions under this particular scheme are quite heavy enough. The Minister of Labour has made various increases in the fund at the expense of the contributors, but there is another course which might have been taken, which, I believe, would equally have commended itself to a large number of workers in this country, and that was to reduce the contributions to the fund. That might have been achieved in a year or two if a certain course the right hon. Gentleman had taken was reversed. Be that as it may, it is a very dangerous precedent to set. It is not a big matter, but it is a very unfortunate thing to put forward at the present time.
The issue is whether a man shall have a right to this benefit, or whether it shall be left to the discretion of the Minister. Hon. Gentlemen opposite ask, What does "discretion of the Minister" mean? It means the discretion of the local employment committees. I happen to be chairman of a particular employment committee. I have had the opportunity of observing the work of this particular committee in an industrial neighbourhood with a large representation of labour men and women on it. I can think of no occasion when injustice was done. I have seen the most patient consideration of cases, and when you say you are not prepared to give discretion to the Minister, you are simply attacking the work of the large number of employment committees up and down the country. I think you ought to be prepared to trust them. Even if a local committee goes wrong, as it is a matter of discretion for the Minister, there are various ways of raising the matter and putting it right. I appeal to anyone who wants to do justice, and to do something for people who are contributing to this fund, to stabilise it and maintain it. It is not a
large matter, but it points in an unfortunate direction. Therefore, I hope the hon. Gentleman who moved this Amendment, and those who support it, will maintain their attitude, because I think they are taking a long and farseeing view, and I believe it is wholly in the interests of the contributors to this fund as well as to the country.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Miss Bondfield): I think the whole House has made up its mind on this question one way or the other. I do, however, echo the hope that the Mover of the Amendment will see fit to withdraw it. The Minister has accepted many decisions of the Committee upstairs, decisions of which he was not personally in favour, because he felt that the great desire on all sides of the House was to secure the passing of this Bill. I was certainly under the impression that the acceptance of the date made it pretty clear that the Clause we are now debating was carried upstairs, largely even by those who may not agree wholly with the principle of it, because it was recognised that the date had been accepted and put in the Bill. The point that interested me in the argument used by the right hon. Member for Hendon (Sir P. LloydGreame), in which he appeared entirely to answer himself, was that no one would lose benefit, and he proceeded to deal with the consequences to the finance of the Bill if the Bill were carried as it stands now. Obviously, if no one was to lose benefit under the uncovenanted benefit Clause, there can be no question of affecting the finances of the find if the Bill be carried as it stands.
The question of the discretion of the Minister is one in which our Bill as it stands would be of immense relief to large numbers of local committees, who would be glad to have this question of principle settled. There is still great discretion left to the local committees in the overhauling of the claims. The workshys are to be weeded out, and the appeal of any member who feels unjustly treated will come up to the Minister in the ordinary course. I want to put this question quite directly to the hon. Member for West Woolwich (Sir K. Wood), and to other
Members who are opposing the Clause as it is worded. Do they want to take the unemployed worker off the fund? That is the crux of the whole thing. If not, there is absolutely nothing to quibble about in recognising the principle of a right so far as the fund itself is concerned. It is a right for the genuine worker when unemployed to receive help from the unemployment fund, and not from the Poor Law, and to save him from the indignity of being chivied about from pillar to post, as he has been under the old Act. The other point is rather important. The right hon. Member for Hendon says that there would be no change in the administration, but can he guarantee that the present Government will remain in power until 1926? I am perfectly prepared to accept that hypothesis, but I do not think we have any evidence or proof to sustain that point, and I do submit that, under the Act as it at present stands, the previous Government had got a three weeks' gap. It was the first thing the Labour Government removed.
Is it the intention of Members to go back to any idea of the gap? If not, they have already given away one of the things which they regarded as essential to the principle of uncovenanted benefit, the right to suspend benefits even from the genuine unemployed person, and we wish to take away from any Government during the existence of this Act the right to reverse the progressive steps that have already been taken, with the consent of this House, in recognition of the principle of continuous benefit. In the course of the speeches, therefore, Members on neither side of the House desire to remove the genuinely unemployed man from the fund. Very well, let us say so quite definitely, and let us recognise the principle that the insurance fund is a fund that should bear the burden of the genuine unemployed. That does not interfere with the principle of contribution. It is a collective contribution, and when the Member gets back to work he will be compelled to go on contributing to the fund, although, after this long spell, he may be fortunate enough never to want to draw unemployment benefit again. Therefore, it is not a reasonable proposition to say in every case, in the exigencies of the industry where continuous employment cannot be guaranteed, that the relationship of contribution is to apply
before the benefit is drawn rather than the relationship of the whole period of the worker's contribution to the fund. The solvency of the fund is not in question in relation to this Amendment, nor is the three-fold contribution, but what is in question is taking the proper view of collective right of contributors to the fund to benefit at a time when they are in a position for which the fund was

primarily founded in the first instance, that is, the question of genuine unemployment. I hope, therefore, the House will accept the Clause as it stands.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill."

The House divided: Ayes, 216; Noes, 201.

Division No. 147.]
AYES.
[5.30 p.m.


Ackroyd, T. R.
Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Morrison, Herbet (Hackney, South)


Acland, Rt. Hon. Francis Dyke
Groves, T.
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)


Adamson, Rt. Hon. William
Grundy, T. W.
Mosley, Oswald


Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)
Guest, J. (York, Hemsworth)
Moulton, Major Fletcher


Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')
Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)
Muir, John W.


Allen, R. Wilberforce (Leicester, S.)
Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Murray, Robert


Alstead, R.
Harbord, Arthur
Murrell, Frank


Ammon, Charles George
Hardie, George D.
Nichol, Robert


Aske, Sir Robert William
Harris, John (Hackney, North)
Nixon, H.


Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry
Harris, Percy A.
O'Grady Captain James


Attlee, Major Clement R.
Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon
Oliver, George Harold


Baker, Walter
Harvey, T. E. (Dewsbury)
Oliver, P. M. (Manchester, Blackley)


Banton, G.
Hastings, Sir Patrick
Owen, Major G.


Barclay, R. Noton
Haycock, A. W.
Paling, W.


Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)
Hemmerde, E. G.
Parkinson, Jon Allen (Wigan)


Barnes, A.
Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Burnley)
Perry, S. F.


Batey, Joseph
Henderson, A. (Cardiff, South)
Phillipps, Vivian


Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)
Henderson, T. (Glasgow)
Ponsonby, Arthur


Bondfield, Margaret
Henderson, W. W. (Middlesex, Enfld.)
Potts, John S.


Bonwick, A.
Hindle, F.
Pringle, W. M. R.


Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.
Hobhouse, A. L.
Raffety, F. W.


Bramsdon, Sir Thomas
Hoffman, P. C.
Ramage, Captain Cecil Beresford


Briant, Frank
Hore-Belisha, Major Leslie
Rathbone, Hugh R.


Broad, F. A.
Howard, Hon. G. (Bedford, Luton)
Raynes, W. R.


Bromfield, William
Hudson, J. H.
Rea, W. Russell


Brown, A. E. (Warwick, Rugby)
Isaacs, G. A.
Rees, Capt. J. T. (Devon, Barnstaple)


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Jackson, R. F. (Ipswich)
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)


Buchanan, G.
Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Ritson, J.


Buckle, J.
Jewson, Dorothea
Robinson, S. W. (Essex, Chelmsford)


Burnie, Major J. (Bootle)
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Romeril, H. G.


Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel
Johnston, Thomas (Stirling)
Rose, Frank H.


Chapple, Dr. William A.
Jones, C. Sydney (Liverpool, W. Derby)
Scrymgeour, E.


Charleton, H. C.
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merloneth)
Scurr, John


Church, Major A. G.
Jones, Rt. Hon. Lelf (Camborne)
Seely, H. M. (Norfolk, Eastern)


Clarke, A.
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Sexton, James


Climle, R.
Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)
Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)


Cluse, W. S.
Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M.
Sherwood, George Henry


Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.
Kenyon, Barnet
Simon, E. D. (Manchester, Withington)


Compton, Joseph
Kirkwood, D.
Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John


Costello, L. W. J.
Lansbury, George
Simpson, J. Hope


Cove, W. G.
Laverack, F. J.
Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)


Crittall, V. G.
Law, A.
Smith, W. R. (Norwich)


Darbishire, C. W.
Lawrence, Susan (East Ham, North)
Snell, Harry


Davies, Ellis (Denbigh, Denbigh)
Leach, W.
Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Lee, F.
Spence, R.


Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)
Linfield, F. C.
Spoor, B. G.


Dickie, Captain J. P.
Livingstone, A. M.
Stamford, T. W.


Dickson, T.
Loverseed, J. F.
Stephen, Campbell


Dodds, S. R.
Lowth, T.
Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)


Dukes, C.
Lunn, William
Sunlight, J.


Duncan, C.
McEntee, V. L.
Thomas, Rt. Hon. James H (Derby)


Dunn, J. Freeman
Mackinder, W.
Thomas, Sir Robert John (Anglesey)


Dunnico, H.
Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)
Thompson, Piers G. (Torquay)


Edwards, G. (Norfolk, Southern)
Maden, H.
Thomson, Trevelyan (Middlesbro. W.)


Emlyn-Jones, J. E. (Dorset, N.)
Mansel, Sir Courtenay
Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)


Finney, V. H.
March, S.
Thornton, Maxwell R.


Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton)
Marley, James
Thurtle, E.


Gardner, J. P. (Hammersmith, North)
Martin W. H. (Dumbarton)
Toole, J.


Gavan-Duffy, Thomas
Masterman, Rt. Hon. C. F. G.
Tillett, Benjamin


George, Major G. L. (Pembroke)
Maxton, James
Tout, W. J.


Gibbins, Joseph
Meyler, Lieut.-Colonel H. M.
Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. P.


Gillett, George M.
Middleton, G.
Viant, S. P.


Gosling, Harry
Millar, J. D.
Vivian, H.


Gould, Frederick (Somerset, Frome)
Mond, H.
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)


Graham, W. (Edinburgh, Central)
Montague, Frederick
Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)


Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)
Morel, E. D.
Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney


Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)
Morris, R. H.
Wedgwood, Col. Rt. Hon. Josiah C.


Whiteley, W.
Williams, Maj, A. S. (Kent, Sevenoaks)
Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)


Wignall, James
Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)
Wright, W.


Williams, David (Swansea, E.)
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)
Young, Andrew (Glasgow, Partick)


Williams, Dr. J. H. (Lianelly)
Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)



Williams, Col. P. (Middlesbrough, E.)
Windsor, Walter
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Williams, Lt.-Col. T.S.B. (Kenningtn.)
Wintringham, Margaret
Mr. John Robertson and Mr. Warne.


NOES.


Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.
Galbraith, J. F. W.
Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)


Alexander, Brig.-Gen. Sir W. (Glas. C.)
Gates, Percy
Perkins, Colonel E. K.


Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.
Gaunt, Rear-Admiral Sir Guy R.
Perring, William George


Astor, Maj. Hon. John J. (Kent, Dover)
Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham
Philipson, Mabel


Athol, Duchess of
Gilmour, Colonel Rt. Hon. Sir John
Pielou D. P.


Baird, Major Rt. Hon. Sir John L.
Greene, W. P. Crawford
Pilkington, R. R.


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Greenwood, William (Stockport)
Raine, W.


Banks, Reginald Mitchell
Grig, Lieut.-Col. Sir Edward W. M.
Rankin, James S.


Barnston, Major Sir Harry
Guinness, Lieut.-Col. Rt. Hon. W. E.
Rawlinson, Rt. Hon. John Fredk. Peel


Barrie, Sir Charles Coupar (Banff)
Gwynne, Rupert S.
Rees, Sir Beddoe


Beckett, Sir Gervase
Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
Reid, D. D. (County Down)


Berry, Sir George
Harney, E. A.
Remer, J. R.


Betterton, Henry B.
Hartington, Marquess of
Remnant, Sir James


Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Harvey, C. M. B. (Aberd'n & Kincardne)
Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.


Blades, Sir George Rowland
Henn, Sir Sydney H.
Richardson, Lt.-Col. Sir P. (Chertsey)


Blundell, F. N.
Hennessy, Major J. R. G.
Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)


Bourne, Robert Croft
Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)
Robinson, W. E. (Burslem)


Bowyer, Captain G. E. W.
Herbert, Capt. Sidney (Scarborough)
Ropner, Major L.


Brass, Captain W.
Hill-Wood, Major Sir Samuel
Roundell, Colonel R. F.


Briscoe, Captain Richard George
Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G.
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)


Brittain, Sir Harry
Hogbin, Henry Cairns
Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)


Brunner, Sir J.
Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (St. Marylebone)
Sandeman, A. Stewart


Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James
Hood, Sir Joseph
Savery, S. S.


Bullock, Captain M.
Horne, Sir R. S. (Glasgow, Hillhead)
Scott, Sir Leslie (Liverp'l, Exchange)


Burman, J. B.
Howard, Hn. D. (Cumberland, Northrn.)
Sheffield, Sir Berkeley


Butler, Sir Geoffrey
Howard-Bury, Lieut.-Col. C. K.
Shepperson, E. W.


Caine, Gordon Hall
Hume-Williams, Sir W. Ellis
Simms, Dr. John M. (Co. Down)


Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)
Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer
Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Univ., Belfast)


Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth.S.)
Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.
Smith-Carington, Neville W.


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)
Jackson, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. F. S.
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord H. (Ox. Univ.)
James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert
Somerville, Daniel (Barrow-In-Furness)


Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton
Jenkins, W. A. (Brecon and Radnor)
Spencer, H. H. (Bradford, South)


Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Birm., W.)
Joynson-Hicks, Rt. Hon. Sir William
Spender-Clay, Lieut.-Colonel H. H.


Chapman, Sir S.
Kay, Sir R. Newbald
Stanley, Lord


Chilcott, Sir Warden
Kindersley, Major G. M.
Steel, Samuel Strang


Clarry, Reginald George
King, Captain Henry Douglas
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Clayton, G. C.
Lamb, J. Q.
Sturrock, J. Leng


Cobb, Sir Cyril
Lane-Fox, George R.
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser


Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.
Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)
Sutcliffe, T.


Cohen, Major J. Brunel
Lloyd-Greame, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip
Sutherland, Rt. Hon. Sir William


Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips
Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)
Tattersall, J. L.


Conway, Sir W. Martin
Lowe, Sir Francis William
Thomspon, Luke (Sunderland)


Cope, Major William
Lumley, L. R.
Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)


Courthope, Lieut.-Col. George L.
McCrae, Sir George
Thomson, Sir W. Mitchell-(Croydon, S.)


Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry
Macdonald, Sir Murdoch (Inverness)
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of


Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.
MacDonald, R.
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement


Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend)
McLean, Major A.
Turton, Edmund Russborough


Curzon, Captain Viscount
Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm
Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.


Dalkeith, Earl of
Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.
Waddington, R.


Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.
McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John
Ward, Lt.-Col. A.L. (Kingston-on-Hull)


Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)
Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.
Watson, Sir F. (Pudsey and Otley)


Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)
Makins, Brigadler-General E.
Wells, S. R.


Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.)
Marriott, Sir J. A. R.
Williams, A. (York, W. R., Sowerby)


Dawson, Sir Philip
Martin, F. (Aberdeen & Kinc'dine, E.)
Wilson, Sir Charles H. (Leeds, Central)


Dixey, A. C.
Meller, R. J.
Wilson, Colonel M. J. (Richmond)


Dixon, Herbert
Milne, J. S. Wardlaw
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Doyle, Sir N. Grattan
Mitchell, W. F. (Saffron Walden)
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Duckworth, John
Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)
Wise, Sir Fredric


Eden, Captain Anthony
Nall, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Joseph
Wolmer, Viscount


Edmondson, Major A. J.
Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge)
Wood, Major Rt. Hon. Edward F. L.


Elveden, Viscount
Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)
Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.


England, Colonel A.
Nield, Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert
Wragg, Herbert


Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith
Oman, Sir Charles William C.
Yate, Colonel Sir Charles Edward


Eyres-Monsell, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.
O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Hugh
Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T.


Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray
Pattinson, S. (Horncastle)



Ferguson, H.
Pease, William Edwin
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


FitzRoy, Capt. Rt. Hon. Edward A.
Pennefather, Sir John
Sir Kingsley Wood and Mr.


Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.
Penny, Frederick George
Hannon.

Mr. STEPHEN: I beg to move, in page 2, line 32, to leave out paragraph (d).
I am encouraged to ask for the deletion of this paragraph in view of what the
Minister of Labour himself said on the previous Amendment. This paragraph places on the applicant the onus of proof to show that he is genuinely seeking for work. I am sure that there are many
hon. Members who will have had a great many cases in which they have found the difficulties that the applicants have had to face in convincing the local unemployment committee that they were genuinely seeking work. There has been a good dead of discussion as to how applicants could prove that they were genuinely seeking work, and for a while committees were disposed to accept the documentary evidence which the applicants were supposed to get from the various employers of labour. Some of us have found in our experience that the local unemployment committees have been encouraged even to reject the claims of applicants who have been able to submit this documental evidence. I believe that the onus of proof should be placed upon the Ministry itself; that they should prove that the applicant for benefit is a work-shy. I believe that it is not right to treat these unemployed people as if they were all under suspicion. This paragraph says to each individual who is unemployed and who is claiming benefit: "You are under suspicion as a work-shy individual; you have got to prove to us that you are not a work-shy individual." I submit that it is the business of the Ministry to show that these individuals are work-shy by offering them employment which they are unwilling to accept.
When the Exchanges were set up, the purposes of the Exchanges were to co-ordinate the needs of the employers and the needs of the workmen; they were to bring the workman and the employers into touch with one another. To-day, however, evidently the Exchanges are not fulfilling their functions in any very large measure; and the consequence is that now the Ministry has turned round and said, "These Exchanges cannot do this: you, yourselves, somehow or other, have got to convince the local unemployment committee that you are seeking for work." Hon. Members may say that that is not anything very difficult for an unemployed person to do, that such a person can surely give a list of places to which he has gone and can easily tell the number of firms he has been at during the week. One of the best things the Minister could do at the present time would be to make these Exchanges function properly in regard to the various employers of labour. The Exchanges in a district could get into touch each day with the employers of labour and find
those who were in need of the services of individual workmen, and then you would have got a real test of who were work-shy and who were not.
Personally, I have had many experiences of individuals honestly seeking work, and who could provide voluminous correspondence that they had been genuinely seeking for work; yet, because they were not skilled in making out their case before the unemployment committee, they found their claim for benefit rejected. We ought to give those people the fullest consideration, and it is the business of the Exchange, its real work, the work that these Exchanges should be doing, to put employers and these workers into connection with one another. I believe that if you were to do that you would be helping to solve the problem of unemployment in a way that is not possible under present circumstances. Accordingly, I hope that the Minister will see his way to give over to these Exchanges the burden of bringing the worker into relationship with the employer, and if the worker does not take the job offered, then there is a good case for refusing his claim for benefit. Otherwise, I submit his claim for benefit should be allowed, and for these reasons I have moved the deletion of this paragraph.

Mr. BATEY: I am going to support the deletion of this paragraph, and I shall support my hon. Friend if he presses his proposal to a Division. I support this proposal because of the action of the Labour Minister in connection with the miners in the county of Durham. This paragraph says
that he is making every reasonable effort to obtain employment suited to his capacities and is willing to accept such employment.
Practically the Ministry of Labour have said to the Durham miners, "You must take and accept employment even if it is in another county." It has been found impossible for old men to find employment in the county of Durham and yet the Employment Exchanges have said to them, "Leave your wives and families and get lodgings in another county." With the wages paid at present in the mining industry it is not possible for these old men to find work and pay lodgings in the neighbouring county of Yorkshire, and at the same time keep a home going in Durham. I have received this week a communication from one of our
miners' lodges providing me with two recent cases, and I will read them to the House because they put the matter in a nutshell, and they show the sympathy they are receiving from the Minister of Labour. The first is the case of a man named George Chipchase, and the secretary of the miners' lodge writes:
Chipchase is a widower with three children. He was offered work at Doncaster (Yorkshire). He refused to go on account of no houses being available as the housing shortage was very acute in that area. Morally he did not think it proper to leave his children at this end and go to lodgings. His benefit was stopped for six weeks commencing on 6th March to 7th April. We appealed against his benefit being stopped and attended Darlington before the committee, and they upheld the decision of the Exchange authorities in withholding payment for six weeks.
Because this man would not leave his home and take on work in Yorkshire they stopped his benefit for six weeks. I say that that man had a right to unemployment benefit, and it was a most cruel thing on the part of the Employment Exchanges to stop that man's unemployed benefit for six weeks. The second case I will give is that of a man named Wilsher. The communication I have received from the miners' lodge says:
Wilsher has a family of seven, with wife and self a total of nine. Wilsher's case is similar to the previous case. He was offered work at or near Doncaster and refused on the same grounds as Chipchase. He appeared before a committee at Bishop Auckland and his benefit was stopped. This is the eighth week without any payment being made to him and his last payment was received on 8th May, and he has received no benefit up to the present. This man had to sign his hand to have his case judged by a committee composed of a solicitor and a secretary.
In view of these facts I think we are entitled to complain of the unsympathetic action of the Minister of Labour, and the way he has treated our miners in the county of Durham. The persons I have mentioned are entitled to the unemployment benefit, and those are not the only cases, for I could cite others which have occurred in which the Employment Exchanges have said, "Get away out of here and find work in another county," and because they have not been able to do that they have had their unemployment benefit stopped. I want to know whether that sort of thing is going to continue. May I point out that the miners last year paid into the unemployment fund no less
than £6,000,000, and they have only got out of it £1,250,000. We have been told that there are now so many thousands less on the unemployment funds compared with last month, and when one reads those figures we have to think of the number of men who have been put off in the way I have described and who are entitled to unemployment benefit.
I want to ask the Minister of Labour whether he is prepared to stop this kind of action on the part of the Employment Exchanges. I also want to complain of the unsympathetic action of the Minister of Labour, for it seems to me that there is no sympathy at all for these men in that Ministry. We are dealing with case after case sent to us of men out of work who are fully entitled to the unemployment benefit and do not get it. We might as well never send our cases to the Minister considering the answers we have been getting. We received last year from the Minister of Labour far more sympathy than we are receiving this year. [HON. MEMBERS: "Come over here!"] No 1 shall not come over there. We were led to believe that under a Labour Government a new spirit would be breathed into all the Departments. [An HON. MEMBER: "You have got it!"] Yes, but it is not the kind of spirit we want. What I am saying applies not only to the Minister of Labour, but to the Minister of Pensions as well. We want our Labour Minister and the Minister of Pensions to breathe this new spirit into their Departments, and not allow themselves to be dominated by the permanent officials. We want to have this new spirit so that the men who are entitled to this benefit will not be treated as they have been treated during the last few weeks.

Mr. SHAW: I cannot accept this Amendment. I have discovered a rather remarkable thing. I knew from what has been said by hon. Members opposite that they thought I was capable of squandering State money on unemployed persons, but now I have been told that I am the hardest-hearted person who ever entered this House. I wonder if the truth lies somewhere between those two statements. At any rate, both of them cannot be true, and I must be free of one of those accusations. What is proposed by this Amendment? It is proposed to delete a paragraph which provides that a man under certain circumstances, having
received benefit for a considerable time in proportion to his contributions, must show that he is making every reasonable effort to obtain employment suitable to his capacity, and that he is willing to accept such employment. Surely there is nothing wrong in that requirement.
Do my hon. Friends who have supported this Amendment realise what I am doing by this Bill? For the first time in history, by means of unemployment insurance I am attempting to pay continuous benefits. The greatest harm that could possibly be done in regard to this fund is that it should be used for improper purposes, and that men should make themselves pensioners on the Insurance Fund. If that occurs, then the workers themselves will smash up the scheme. I am seriously trying hard not only to give every genuine workman the benefit so long as he is unemployed, but I have to make sure that my scheme will stand it, and that the conditions I lay down will be sufficient to guarantee that no undue advantage will be taken of my scheme. The question of individual cases is one that can be discussed under better circumstances and in better conditions than on an Amendment like this. The question as to whether the Labour Minister is not as sympathetic with regard to individual cases as his predecessor does not arise in relation to this Amendment. It may have something to do with it in a roundabout way, but the connection is very remote. I am prepared to discuss those individual cases and it is not a fact that any instructions in any way have been given to the Employment Exchange officials to take up the position that they must, if possible, get people off the benefit list. Neither am I prepared to accept the accusation so often made that local committees use their functions for the purpose of depriving people of their benefit who are genuinely entitled to receive it.

Mr. BUCHANAN: It is quite true.

Mr. SHAW: It may be quite true, but I want proof before I accept the statement. These committees are composed of representatives of employers' and workers' organisations. On every local committee there are trade union representatives, and I am not prepared to accept the statement which has been made without proof that these trade union representatives are not doing their duty. I must first have
absolute proof that trade union representatives are guilty of such conduct, but whether they be guilty or not has nothing to do with this Amendment. The point is whether it is reasonable to say that under the conditions I have laid down, when a man has drawn benefits in proportion to his contributions and he is still drawing benefits, he should show
that he is making every reasonable effort to obtain employment suitable to his capacities and is willing to accept such employment.
6.0 P.M.
I think that is a perfectly reasonable condition to make. Where is there a society of any kind whatever where the onus of proof does not lie upon the man making the application? I know before a trade unionist gets his benefit he has to prove that he is fully entitled. I am not willing that the benefits of the Fund should be given to a man whether he is entitled to them or not. Still, I cannot enter into a discussion with my hon. Friend on that point. I am getting a little bit tired of the superior person who thinks that in him and in him alone virtue resides, that he alone truly represents his constituents, and that everybody else is neglecting his duty. So long as I remain a Minister, I shall consider it my duty to represent those who cannot speak for themselves. A Minister is in a difficult position, and, if I am going to play my part, I must defend the civil servants against whom attacks are made. I must also defend my fellow trade unionists on the local committees, and I shall do so until it is proved that they are not doing the things they should do. I hope when I leave this House to-night to go to Scotland and see for myself what the circumstances are, for I will not accept as a fact the accusations made against either civil servants or trades unionists until I have proof. I ask the House to come back again to the Clause, to discuss it on its merits, and see what the issues are. Nothing is of more vital importance to this scheme than that the administration of the Fund should be above all suspicion.

Dr. MACNAMARA: I hope my hon. Friends above the Gangway will not think me impertinent if I venture to give them a word of advice. They propose to take out this provision as to a man proving that he is making every reasonable effort
to obtain employment in a suitable capacity and that he is willing to accept such employment. The Mover of the Amendment, of course, did not say or mean that he ought not to make every reasonable effort. What he did suggest was that the onus of proving that he is doing so should rest not upon him but upon somebody else. The final test would, of course, be for the local authority to offer the man a job. If this paragraph be struck out, make no mistake about it, you will get the situation to which my right hon. Friend has drawn attention, and some people will say—some who have contributed to the fund—that you object to a man making every reasonable effort to obtain employment. Believe me, the final test, whether a man is genuinely seeking employment, is to offer him a job. Reference has been made to the fact that the miners appear to have paid into this fund a great deal more than they have taken out of it. Of course, if they have not got out of it what is their due, it is up to them to see that they do get it, but I rather object to the growing tendency to look upon this fund as a sort of slate club from which one takes out as much as be pays in. That is not the principle of insurance. If there be a scarcity of jobs, let me suggest that the employers should play their part and send to the Ministry any vacancies they have. If the Minister of Labour is put in possession of such vacancies, then, if a man comes to him and says he cannot find work, he will be able to reply, "I have here a suitable job which I offer you." That is the only way in which to deal with these matters. During the time I was Minister of Labour I made an appeal, not with very great success I admit, to employers of labour to make more use of the Employment Exchanges.

Mr. WILLIAM GREENWOOD: Is it true that employers of labour do not send their vacancies to the Exchanges when they have any to fill?

Dr. MACNAMARA: I do not suggest that they do not. I am only putting it that I wish they would send more. If it be suggested that a man is work shy, then the only way to deal with him when he tells you he cannot get work is to offer him a job. By that means only will you be able to administer this fund properly.
All the employers of labour have to do is to play their part, and then they will find the fund will only get into the hands of those for whom it is intended. If a man refuses a job when it is offered to him by the Minister, he can be deprived of the benefit of the fund. I appeal to hon. Members not to press the Amendment, as insistence upon it might lead to a good deal of misunderstanding as to their position and do them a very great injustice.

Mr. MAXTON: I want to press on the Ministry the desirability of accepting the Amendment, the true purport of which I think the right hon. Member for North Camberwell (Dr. Macnamara) has not appreciated. It is a proposal to delete paragraph (d) only. It is not proposed to delete the whole section. Paragraph (a) puts the burden of proof on the applicant that he is normally seeking to obtain a livelihood by means of an insurable employment. Paragraph (b) lays it down that at normal times such suitable employment is available for him, and under Paragraph (c) he has to prove what oportunities he has had for obtaining insurable employment during the period he has been unemployed. He has, in fact, to prove before he is entitled to benefit all these three things which are covered in the pargraphs I have mentioned in a general way. We do not want to remove the general principle from the Insurance Scheme when we are looking after the interests of the working classes, but we want to take away from the local manager of the Exchange, or from the local committee, the power to use Paragraph (d) in the way it has been used in the past to keep down the total number of people receiving benefit at the Exchange. Time and time again we have come across cases of that nature.
If the Minister will excuse me for saying so, I do not think he was right in adopting the attitude he did towards my hon. Friend the Member for Spennymoor (Mr. Batey), or my hon. Friend the Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan), nor was he justified in treating the subject in such a heated way. I want him to see the matter from the point of view of the applicant and not merely of the Ministry. Every week end, when we go home, we have hundreds of our fellows in our constituencies talking to us about cases that have arisen at the local Employment Ex-
changes, and we find that these men have established a claim for the unemployment benefit, and that the officials being unable to urge any other reason for turning them down, have decided to deprive them of their benefit on the ground that they are not genuinely seeking employment, although they have presented heaps of certificates from employers to whom they have made application. One need not assume that we are casting any reflection on the Civil Service generally, because we happen to be defending the working classes against the attacks of those who are in a somewhat sheltered position. If one does sometimes abuse the manager of the Employment Exchange it is more frequently the case that that manager, or one of his subordinate officials, says abusive things about the poor devil who is seeking to get the benefit. I have in my constituency a big number of men who have been unemployed for four or five years and who have as much difficulty in getting assitsance from the Employment Exchange as the proverbial camel finds in passing through a needle's eye.
As between one Employment Exchange and another, there is the widest divergence in the number of people who are turned down under this Clause. The Employment Exchange in the Gorbals Division is not more than half-a-mile from the Exchange in my own constituency, yet the numbers turned down in my constituency are relatively much fewer than the numbers turned down under this Clause by the Employment Exchange in my hon. Friend's Division. I can only conclude it is because when I approach the Employment Exchange officials in my Division I have been uniformly polite to them, while possibly the hon. Member for the Gorbals Division has been more brusque. I think the Minister should ensure something like equality of treatment in the Employment Exchanges over the whole country, so that a man in the Bridgeton Division may have the same chance of getting the benefit as a man in Durham or Yorkshire, or any other part of the Kingdom. There should be one general standard for the whole country. If the right hon. Gentleman will agree to the deletion of this particular paragraph he will still have, under the remainder of the Section, very wide powers in the administration of the fund. But if he is going to stick to the point of
view he took just now, I would seriously urge upon him to try by administrative means to ensure that paragraph (d) is used only as it is intended by Parliament to be used, and that it shall not be used as a sort of last defence by the official who wants to keep down the expenditure of his particular Exchange to the lowest possible point, and who, whenever he cannot find any other excuse, alleges that the applicant is not "genuinely seeking employment." I hope the right hon. Gentleman will see that the Clause is used fairly, and not as a weapon of attack against the unemployed.

Mr. SHAW: I can certainly give the assurance asked for by my hon. Friend. While I desire that no man shall get the benefit to which he is not entitled, I am determined that no man entitled to benefit shall be deprived of it by the machinations of anyone. I will do all I can to see that the intentions of Parliament are given effect to, and to secure that this particular Regulation shall be properly used.

Sir K. WOOD: I am sure the House will be gratified to hear the statement the right hon. Gentleman has just made, because there is undoubtedly some substance in the matter the hon. Members behind have brought forward. I have some experience in connection with Employment Exchanges, and the difficulty arises in this way. Very often a particular manager, or a particular committee, holds the view that unless an unemployed man can bring forward some documentary evidence that he has been seeking work his claim must be disallowed. I have known cases in which a man has joined up in a queue seeking for work, but has never reached the employer. Then a man may go to an employer and may be refused work, and the employer will refuse to give him any document in writing that he has been there. Those are the sort of cases that raise the difficulty which has been quite rightly put forward. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Camberwell (Dr. Macnamara), who is generally very expert and informative, gave a very easy solution. He said the matter would be solved if the employers would notify the vacancies to the Exchanges. That may be so, but if he will go to any Employment Exchange they will tell him there are not the vacancies
to notify, and that is the difficulty. If there were these vacancies and the employers notified them, and there was all this work about, we should not have this difficulty. While I could not support an Amendment which takes away the test altogether, I say that undoubtedly in certain cases an unduly harsh view is taken of the obligations which a man has to satisfy before he can say he is genuinely seeking work. For that reason, I hope the Minister will put into action the promise he has made.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. SHAW: I beg to move, in page 2, line 40, after the word "marine," to insert the word "soldier."
This is a very simple Amendment. Unfortunately, the word "soldier" was left out of the Clause which deals with the contributions to the credit of men who have served in the Forces.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. MACLEAN: I beg to move, in page 3, line 8, at the end, to insert the words
For the purpose of paragraph (d) of this Sub-section:
The production of certificates from employers certifying he has made application to them for work shall be accepted as proof of such 'reasonable effort.'
I want to know, if the Minister is not prepared to accept this Amendment in the body of the Bill, whether he is prepared to send it out as a recommendation to the Employment Exchanges. The Employment Exchanges demanded some written proof that a man was genuinely seeking employment, and when asked what proof they would accept they said a certificate or voucher received from the foreman to whom the man had applied for a situation would be taken by them as a genuine guarantee that he had applied for a situation. After the man had gone to that trouble and the foreman had been considerate enough to write out a note, the Exchange officials and local committees turned clown these certificates and said they were no use whatsoever. Will the right hon. Gentleman now either accept the Amendment or send it out as a recommendation that these certificates shall be recognised as proof that the man is genuinely seeking employment?

Mr. BUCHANAN: I beg to second the Amendment.

Mr. SHAW: I am going to ask my hon. Friend to withdraw the Amendment in the interests of the cause he has at heart. I am afraid, if we get this Amendment in the Bill, it will tend to stereotype the demand for a written document, and as I know, from complaints which have been made to me over and over again, a man genuinely seeking work goes to different firms and asks for a ticket of some kind to show that he has been, and they say it is no business of theirs to give him tickets, and he cannot get them. When the Bill is through it is my serious intention, as soon as I get the time, to go into this matter thoroughly. There have been a large number of complaints, and I want to know what the truth is. Having ascertained it, I will take such steps as will lead the local committees and everyone concerned to give due consideration to the case and to make it known that the primary business of committees and of everyone concerned, including the Exchange officials, is to do justice to the men.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. W. GREENWOOD: I beg to move, in page 3, line 12, after the word "section," to insert the words
if he has been employed for more than thirty hours on not more than three days in any week for which he claims benefit or.
This is to prevent unemployment benefit being paid for the second three days in the week where overtime has brought the amount of time worked in the first three days of the week to 30 hours or more. The idea is, that it would be unfair to the other contributors to the scheme if men were paid under those circumstances.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir J. NALL: I beg to second the Amendment.
It has come to the knowledge of some hon. Members that in certain cases where men are regularly employed only three days in the week, and in those three days perform overtime so that they work some 48 or more hours, they are entitled to unemployment benefit for the other three days in the week. That seems to me contrary to the intention of the Act and entirely unreasonable. If a man is able to earn his ordinary week's wages in less than a full week, it ought not to be necessary for him to draw unemployment bene-
fit. I hope the Minister will accept this Amendment and put an end to what is clearly a very grave abuse.

Mr. SHAW: I am going to ask the two hon. Members who have moved and seconded this Amendment to withdraw it. I agree that if men are working in three days what is equivalent to a full week's work or more it is quite wrong to attempt to get from the Insurance Fund benefits for the remaining three days, but I am advised that administratively it is a practical impossibility to apply the Amendment. A case has been stated to an Umpire on this point and I hope we shall get from him something which will be helpful, but if we put this Amendment into the Bill we simply cannot work it. Anything that can be done administratively, or under the Umpire's decision, to prevent abuse will be done, but the cases are so difficult that they could not be dealt with by means of this Amendment. I give the advice I have received from my advisers. I thoroughly agree with it, and I ask for the Amendment to be withdrawn, not because it is wrong in principle, but because it is not a method which can be adopted administratively with success.

Viscount WOLMER: We are willing to receive the right hon. Gentleman's assurance, but I do not think he has in the least explained why it is impossible. The words can be put into the Bill. Does he suggest that the committees would have difficulty in interpreting them? They appear to be perfectly plain. At any rate, they might be of some use as a safeguard against abuse. The right hon. Gentleman ought to explain why he regards the working of the Amendment as impossible.

Mr. SHAW: There are cases which it would be extremely difficult to deal with under the Amendment. It would be extremely difficult to administer in the case of an engineer doing repairs at a mill. I am quite in accord with my advisers that it will be impossible to attempt to apply this, because it will mean an amount of investigation and of questioning which would throw the whole of our administrative machinery out of gear.

Sir J. NALL: Is the House to understand that, as the Acts are now drawn and the Bill is intended to be passed, an insured person will be entitled, whatever action the Minister may take administratively, to receive benefit in these cases? I think it is the situation at present that no kind of administrative action can be taken, because a man is legally entitled to benefit although he has worked 48 hours. Cannot it be adjusted in some way so that the benefit may be governed by the number of hours worked and not the number of days?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: As I understand it, the Minister is taking steps administratively to do what he can to prevent benefit being drawn in these cases. Under what power in the Acts is he taking steps to do that? I can imagine that there may be cases where he cannot enforce it because the difficulties are too great, but there, I think, the House would readily say we do not expect the impossible to be done. We certainly do not want an enormous staff of officials for this purpose, nor do we want reasonable cases held up for fear that you may be letting a few cases of that sort through. One will always trust any responsible Minister to use his discretion about that. What the House does not quite understand is what powers the Minister possesses which he can use in order to try to avoid these cases drawing benefit. If he has such powers, perhaps he can point out the Section of the Act. If he has not those powers, would he not be well advised to take those powers, on the clear understanding that he will administer them as well as he can? Of course, certain cases will be bound to get through. We want to make sure that the Minister has the power to do the best he can in the circumstances.

Mr. SHAW: The power that I possess is the power that has been exercised up to now. The law as it stands is that every day must stand by itself. If a man works four hours one day, or 12 hours one day, that is one day, as the law now stands. I do not think there is any doubt as to the justice and the spirit underlying this Amendment. It is to prevent men in collusion with their employers from working an extraordinary number of hours on less than six days in the week and claiming benefit for the remaining part of the week. Any-
thing that I can do, administratively, to stop that, will be done, but until the decision of the umpire is given I cannot exactly say what are the powers of the Ministry. There are certain things that must be decided extra-Ministerially. Any questions of doubt as to the law go to the umpire. This matter has been before the umpire. That is all the information I can give to the House in addition to the information I have already given. I am advised by my advisers that the amount of investigation and the amount of staff required to conduct these investigations, having regard to the huge amount of casual and short-time labour that prevails now, would be so great as far to outbalance the amount that we should gain by stopping one or two individual cases of this kind.

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: I do not understand what it is that the right hon. Gentleman is sending to the umpire. He says he has to get the umpire's decision as to what the law is. He tells us that the law as it stands to-day is that, if a man is in work for one day, it does not matter whether he works four hours or 12 hours, it counts as a day. If he is at work for three days, working 10 hours a day, equally the law as it stands is that he draws benefit. In that event, what is it that is going to the umpire? The umpire may decide that the law is as the Minister says it is, in which case the Minister will have no power to stop these cases. It is common ground between us that we want to stop these cases where we reasonably can. The Minister now has a chance of making the law what we want it to be and to put it into this Bill instead of waiting for what the umpire may decide. I cannot see how the right hon. Gentleman will be prejudiced by accepting the Amendment.

Mr. BUCHANAN: There is something in the argument that if a man works 50 hours in a week on two or three days that man ought not to receive benefit for the rest of the week. On principle, I think it is right for a man to be deprived of benefit when he only works four hours in a day, but in that case you cannot argue the other thing when it is against you. You say to the man: "We must have a definite statement of what a day is." You go to the man who may work six
half days in a week or three full days and you say to him, "You are not entitled to any benefit." That is where it hits the man. When the man works overtime you then want the Act again to operate against the same man.
In my own trade I have known a man to work for six weeks continuously short time and he never received one penny of benefit. He then had a week or two idle, for which he was paid benefit. Afterwards he proceeded to work for two or three days, 40 or 50 hours. That man had been for six weeks deprived of benefit through working short time, when, possibly, the House would have agreed that he had a good case for benefit. When he works overtime you want to quote the Act against him. There is a case which is not uncommon which arises at the beginning and end of a week. The week starts on the Monday and finishes on the Saturday evening. During the week a man works overtime, say on Friday and Saturday, or on Saturday and Sunday. The overtime may count part in one week and part in the next week. It would be impossible, administratively, to get at that man.
This Clause affects comparatively few. Nearly every trade union has taken steps to safeguard its position. We have to remember that we are dealing in this matter largely with trade unions who pay out benefit, and that for nearly every sovereign of benefit we pay the trade union is paying 5s., 10s., or 15s. The trade unions will not pay benefit to men who are working overtime and taking the bread from the mouth of some other man by that means. Nearly every trade union takes steps to safeguard their members in that connection. The Minister of Labour at the present time has committees dealing with the question as to whether a man is looking for a job. Why should he not send this question to committees of that kind for them to decide whether the man is entitled to benefit or not in these cases. If we are going to make a change, why not send it to these Employment Exchange committees so that they may deal with the question?

Mr. SHAW: I regret to say that I must ask for this Amendment to be withdrawn. Again, I have consulted my advisers, and their advice is that the administrative work that would be involved in trying to deal with the eases
under this Amendment would be so great that it would be likely either to mean a huge accession to the staff, or the holding back of the payment of claims until investigation has taken place. The right hon. Gentleman opposite asks me on what grounds we go to the umpire. We go to the umpire to decide as to whether this is genuine work as understood by the Act, and whether these men are genuinely available for work on the days on which they do not work. The umpire will have a chance of investigating the circumstances, and I am sure that if he found that there was collusion between the employer and the employé to work an extraordinary number of hours on three days in the week in order to leave the works idle for the remaining three days, there would be no doubt about the umpire's decision. As to the main lines of the law, that, generally speaking, each day is to count for itself, there can be no doubt.

Mr. WADDINGTON: In cases which I have in mind there is no question of collusion between the employer and the employed. The complaint comes from the operatives who are working alongside the people who work these extraordinary long hours and then accompany them to draw equal unemployment benefit. The men in these particular cases have to work overtime to finish up their work on certain machines, and the complaint is that while the ordinary worker only works 10 hours a day these other men who have worked 14, 15 or 16 hours a day go to draw unemployment benefit on the remaining days of the week, although they have worked, perhaps, 40 or 45 hours in three days any week. There is no question of any collusion of any sort between the employer and the employed and, therefore, that question cannot go to the umpire. The question as to what can be referred to the umpire seems too indefinite. In the Act, as interpreted by the Minister, there is nothing that can go to the umpire in the particular case that I have referred to. I recognise the desire of the Minister to meet the ease and to make inquiries. I recognise also that there are great injustices in the cases referred to by the last speaker, and therefore I suggest the Amendment be withdrawn.

Mr. W. GREENWOOD: I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

CLAUSE 2.—(Rates of unemployment benefit.)

Colonel PENRY WILLIAMS: I beg to move in page 4, line 24, to leave out the word "two" and to insert instead thereof the word "three."
I hope this Amendment will commend itself to the Minister. It is a continuation of the attempts we have made on every possible occasion to increase the allowance for the maintenance of children which is granted to people who are out of work. When the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North-West Camberwell (Dr. Macnamara) initiated the system which stands to his credit, and made an allowance for the maintenance of children of the unemployed workers, the allowance was fixed at 1s. per week. He was assailed from all sides as to the inadequacy of the allowance. It was pointed out that it was something less than 2d. a day for the maintenance of a child. All the arguments that were used against that allowance apply to-day with equal force to an allowance of 2s. Although 2s. is an improvement on 1s., it is only an allowance of less than 3½d. per day. If you give a child something to eat in the morning and at mid-day, and something before it goes to bed, that allowance represents only 1d. per meal and ½d. for luxury. We believe that that allowance should be increased, and we put the figure at 3s. per week, which is only 5d. per day. We believe that this is too little, and that the allowance ought to be increased at the earliest possible moment. I could not justify the allowance of 3s. per child if I were called upon to do so. I should be forced to the line of defence, which, no doubt, the Minister will take, that it is a better allowance than 2s. per week, just as he will say that 2s. is better than 1s.
I am not oblivious of the fact that this Amendment would mean a considerable drain on the fund. We are faced to-day with an industrial catastrophe of the first magnitude. I believe that it will pass over, at least I hope so, in a very short time. But if it does not, then this system of unemployment insurance cannot last.
It is bound to be made more effective for the protection of our working people, and of their dependants. It cannot continue on the scale which this Bill lays down. If, fortunately, our trade improves, and our people get back to employment, then this fund will rapidly become solvent. The only question is whether we are prepared to take the risk, and to go on in good times paying a heavy contribution in order to repay what we are borrowing in a period of national emergency.
I am prepared, in moving this Amendment, to take that risk. I am not prepared to take the risk of deteriorating the rising generation, which means that if we neglect our children we are running the risk of turning our population into a C 3 population for a generation to come, but I am prepared to take the risk of facing an increase, if necessary, in the contributions to meet this increased charge, and I ask the Minister to approach those who pay these contributions, the workers who are fortunate enough to be in work and their employers who have never refused to pay their fair share of contribution for the solvency of this fund, and to ask them whether they are not willing, in this time of national emergency, to put up a contribution which will properly take care of the rising generation of this nation.

Mr. T. THOMSON: I beg to second the Amendment.
The case is one which hardly needs any words of mine to support. On the question of finance, which I take to be the difficulty which the Minister may raise when he comes to reply, he will admit that 3s. is not a satisfactory allowance on which to keep a child, and I submit that the contention of my hon. Friend, that we had better defer the end of the deficiency period rather than refuse this act of justice, is a sound one. I submit from the White Paper which has been submitted, having made allowances for the expenditure involved by the Amendments upstairs, that the scheme is not bankrupt by any means and that by the end of March next year there would be a, balance of over £2,000,000. I know that that is required in order to reduce the deficiency, and wipe off a debit balance, but on the working of the year, up to the end of March next, there is actually a credit balance which it is suggested should be used for paying off the
deficiency. But I submit further that as unemployment is reduced in a very short time there will be a considerable balance accruing from contributions which are at present being paid by all parties.
It is estimated that in a couple of years if unemployment should fall to 6 per cent., which is higher than the pre-War average taken over a period of years, there will be a balance in the fund of over £20,000,000 a year, that is, assuming that contributions are kept up to their present rate. I submit it is better to give adequate benefits and retain the present contributions, which are paid willingly in a time of trade depression, and which therefore would be no undue burden when trade revives, in order to give adequate provision to the worker for his children and his home. I know that it is the intention of the right hon. Gentleman, in increasing the benefits which he is giving, to do away with the overlapping, which arises at the present time, of the unemployed benefit being supplemented by grants from the guardians; I do think that you want to give adequate maintenance to the unemployed worker, and that when making an allowance of 3s. it will be very much easier for the worker to refrain from going to the guardians, and this will have the advantage of stopping overlapping and stopping the drain which is such a burden on local rates. For these reasons I hope that the Minister will see that justice is done, even though the deficiency period has to be deferred for a short time.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: On a point of Order. May I ask whether the Amendment of the hon. Member covers the Amendment which I have put down to increase the amount to 2s. 6d., and is it your intention to call on me to move that Amendment, in case the Amendment now under discussion is either withdrawn or defeated?

Mr. SPEAKER: I do not propose to call the following Amendment, unless the House arrive at something like an agreement by which that can be done. Otherwise, I think that this Debate will be sufficient to meet the views of the House.

Mr. SHAW: With very great regret, I am going to ask the House not to accept this Amendment, and, in doing so, may I give the House some evidence of the difficulty which I have. If I had accepted all the Amendments in Committee, they
would have meant an increased expenditure of something like £25,000,000 a year. Every individual Member thought his individual Amendment was the most important, but yet it was obviously impossible for me to accept all Amendments of that description unless I were prepared to face an increase in the contributions, which I believe would be fatal to all hope of getting the Bill passed. If I am going to choose between the different Amendments, I must choose what appears to me to be an Amendment which will remedy the greater injustice. I am prepared later in the Debate, on the part of the Government, to accept an Amendment which will mean a greatly increased expenditure. I am going to state frankly to the House before that decision is taken what the financial circumstances will be.
The Amendment in question is that which reduces the waiting period from six days to three. That will mean—I hope that I am in order in referring to it, but I think that it will elucidate the point—an added expenditure of £4,500,000 a year, which I think is equivalent to saying that the end of the deficiency period will be put further back, and it is extremely doubtful whether there will be an end of the deficiency period in any reasonable time, unless there is a considerable decrease in unemployment. I thought it well to tell the House that, because it will make them understand why I must say now that I must reluctantly decline to entertain any other Amendment which means increased expenditure, because I think that I have gone as far as the House would wish me to go, and certainly as far as the contributors to the scheme would desire. In view of the fact that I am prepared on behalf of the Government to accept the Amendment to reduce the waiting period from six days to three days, I hope that my hon. Friends will not press me to accept another Amendment which will mean increased expenditure. I am aware that this Bill is not perfect. I am also perfectly aware that in the normal course a man with a wife and three children is going to get an increase of 6s. a week. I ask the House to take those facts into consideration, and I would request the hon. Member to withdraw his Amendment.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I desire to make a few remarks, because
the Amendment to which I have referred is on the same principle as this Amendment. I was extremely disappointed at the reply of my right hon. Friend. When the 1s. for the child was originally proposed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Camberwell (Dr. Macnamara) I moved an Amendment to increase that amount to 2s. 6d. It was seconded by the hon. Member for St. Helens (Mr. Sexton), and every Labour Member in the House at that time—this was in the Coalition Parliament—supported that proposal that the amount should be 2s. 6d. I am sure if the Minister for Labour had been in the House then he would have supported that proposal. The whole case for increasing the allowance for the child is overwhelming. No child can be kept in a Poor Law institution for the amount for which the right hon. Gentleman is asking unemployed workmen to keep them.
My right hon. Friend says "I am doing all I can. The finance is very difficult. I am accepting an Amendment to reduce the waiting period to three days." That is very good news, but I think that it is much more important to have sympathy extended to the children and families of such parents who have been out of work for a long period, than to reduce the waiting period in the case of families who have been in employment. These have had some resources, whereas the families who have been out of employment for a long time have used up all their resources and the children are bound to suffer. My hon. Friend the Member for Middles-brough (Mr. T. Thomson) spoke of the meals required by a child in the day. He did not make any reference to the clothing and boots of the child, but those things wear out during a long period of poverty and privation, and some other provision is needed.
The whole conception on which my right hon. Friend builds his financial scheme is one of a long continued period of unemployment. He knows that unless this Government can provide work and reduce unemployment in the country it will not remain in office. That is obvious. It will not get the support of hon. Members below the Gangway, and, unless it has made new friends on the other side who believe in doles rather than in work, hon. Members opposite will not support the Government, and it will go out of office. It is not fair for the Government, in view of the statements
which it has made, to bank on a great amount of unemployment extending over a long period. Therefore I think that we are justified in taking the risk of increasing the amount of the allowance for children in the terms of this Amendment. I hope that my hon. Friend will not withdraw his Amendment, and I hope that hon. Gentlemen who in Parliament in 1921 voted for increasing the amount for children will now support the same principle and vote for this Amendment.

7.0 P.M.

Dr. MACNAMARA: I sympathise with the right hon. Gentleman in the position in which he finds himself. I have been in the same position myself, though in these more gracious days he is defending 2s. while I had to defend 1s. My right hon. Friend does not suggest that 2s. a week is enough to keep a child, but he says, "This is all I can run to. "I was in the same position, although I had 2,000,000 of people to provide for and another 1,000,000 on short time. One shilling was all I could do. Hon. Members seem to think this is a magic lamp; you have only to rub it, and all sorts of things will happen. It is not. The waiting period is to remain as it is and not to be increased to six days. If this scheme could have been left where my right hon. Friend found it, it would be solvent next October. I personally should not have left it as it is. I should have raised the children to 2s., and I am sorry we could not do more than we did at the time. That would have carried it on. It would have been solvent then about a fortnight into November. First of all, my right hon. Friend wiped out the gap, then he made young fellows and young women eligible, and he made aliens eligible, and he made a continuous benefit. Now he proposes to extend the benefit. His Bill proposes to run the solvency period up to about June, 1926. He says, "I am going back to three days." That will carry it up to June, 1927. Then there is another Amendment which is not susceptible of calculation. He does not know what it will cost. It will be out of order to mention it now. Where that is going to land us, I do not know.
I heard a phrase from my right hon. Friend which very much shocked me. He said, "I do not know whether this thing will ever get solvent," or words to that
effect. That is rather a serious thing to say. It only carries out what I have been trying to impress upon him, that you are going to put this thing on the rocks. If you want a non-contributory scheme, you are doing very well. Workpeople pay at the present time 9d. and employers 10d. If this scheme could have been left where it was before the close of this year, men would have come down to 6d and women, paying 7d., would have come down to 5d. and we should have been able to give additional benefits. You are rather trying their patience when for three years you compel them to make these payments, and in many cases they bear no relationship to their unemployment risks. I heard one complaint, an individual complaint, when we raised it to 9d. One workman and one employer, that was all. I thought it was very fine.

Mr. SPEAKER: The right hon. Gentleman seeks to go into rather a general discussion on the finance of the Bill. The question here is 2s. or 3s.

Dr. MACNAMARA: I was going to conclude with what that might cost. It seems to me, with great respect, rather germane to the matter. The right hon. Gentleman did not tell us what it would cost. My recollection is that it would cost £1,250,000. Without it, you have pushed the solvency period on three years. You cannot go on doing that. People will get weary. As a matter of fact, all this clamour for contracting out arises from the fact that they saw a long vista of paying these heavy sums. My hon. Friend would be well advised, although I do not presume to advise him, to meet the Minister by accepting this £4,500,000 against the £1,250,000. I should close with the Minister and withdraw this Amendment.

Brigadier-General Sir H. CROFT: I only want to refer for one moment to the attitude of those who moved this Amendment. I think it is generally known in the country at large that the party which sits opposite likes to be regarded as the party of retrenchment and always warns the electors that this country can never recover until we can cut down expenditure in every direction. The Mover of the proposal is quite content to contemplate even increased contributions in order to provide this fund.
That fact should be realised. We cannot have it both ways. The party cannot be a party of retrenchment and yet continually pile on the agony on industry. The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) told us what we did not want was doles. The House must realise that this policy in the long run is, in effect, a policy of doles. Here it is proposed to put this increased burden of £1,250,000 on industry, and we have been told that £4,500,000 is already to be added. I do not know whether this is for electioneering purposes or not, but these burdens are going to smash industry. We scrapped £2,500,000 of revenue. On the other hand, we increased the burdens. I hope the Minister will not be drawn in the direction indicated, because if we follow that path it simply means our industry cannot recover.

Mr. BRIANT: It is admitted in all parts of the House that 2s. per week would not maintain a child. Unless you give an adequate amount, people must go to the Poor Law. It is the only place they have to go. Even with a full allowance under this Bill, there must be hundreds of thousands of people who will find it insufficient. It is foolish to talk of any insurance Bill as though the amount given will maintain a wife and family. It will not. Is it better that money should come direct from the State or from contributions or from the Poor Law? It has to come from one or the other. People have got to live. It is coming from the Poor Law or other funds, and if this House says it will come from any other sources than the Poor Law I, as a Poor Law guardian, welcome anything which will prevent a man applying to the Poor Law. Any step which will be likely to remove families still further from application to the Poor Law I welcome. Do not let us deceive ourselves and the public. I hope my hon. Friend will not withdraw the Amendment.

Mr. MACLEAN: May I make a suggestion to the Minister of Labour? He has already intimated to the House that he is prepared to accept an Amendment further on which is going to cost the fund £4,500,000 per annum. As I understand this Amendment, it is suggested that it will cost £1,250,000 per annum. Might I suggest to the Minister if he could, instead of having the waiting period as he suggests, three days, make it four days, and accept this Amendment. It will then cost roughly the £4,500,000 which he is prepared to give on the waiting period, and we shall have 3s. for the children. Might I put that before him as an alternative suggestion and ask if he will not consider it? I know it is a short notice, but I think the matter is worth considering, in that you are giving the child something extra and you are giving the men something extra. I doubt if it will cost more than the £4,500,000 the Minister is prepared to concede.

Mr. SHAW: No. Regretfully again, I must stick to my decision. The concession that the Cabinet is prepared to give and the Amendment we are prepared to accept will mean that the present overdrawn condition of the fund will be likely to remain for a considerable time, which will postpone the end of the deficiency period and prevent any reduction of the contribution. I have done a great deal in this way. It would be easily possible for me to give way to my heart's desire and to go even one further than hon. Members, but the Cabinet has decided what it will do. It will support the Amendment which will mean an increase of £4,500,000. I cannot accept this Amendment, regretful as it may be to myself, and if it be forced to a Division, I shall vote against it, and if it be carried I shall have to reconsider the position.

Question put, "That the word 'two' stand part of the Bill."

The House divided: Ayes, 267; Noes, 123.

Division No. 148.]
AYES.
[7.15 p.m.


Ackroyd, T. R.
Atholl, Duchess of
Batey, Joseph


Acland, Rt. Hon. Francis Dyke
Attlee, Major Clement R.
Beckett, Sir Gervase


Adamson, Rt. Hon. William
Austin, Sir Herbert
Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)


Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)
Baker, Walter
Berry, Sir George


Alden, Percy
Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Betterton, Henry B.


Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')
Banner, Sir John S. Harmood-
Birchall, Major J. Dearman


Alexander, Brig. Gen. Sir W. (Glas.C.)
Banton, G.
Blades, Sir George Rowland


Alstead, R.
Barclay, R. Noton
Blundell, F. N.


Ammon, Charles George
Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)
Bondfield, Margaret


Apsley, Lord
Barnes, A.
Bowater, Sir T. Vansittart


Astor, Maj. Hn. John J. (Kent, Dover)
Barnston, Major Sir Harry
Bowyer, Captain G. E. W.


Brassey, Sir Leonard
Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)
Potts, John S.


Briscoe, Captain Richard George
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton


Brittain, Sir Harry
Hartington, Marquess of
Raffety, F. W.


Broad, F. A.
Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon
Raine, W.


Bromfield, William
Harvey, C. M. B. (Aberd'n & Kincardne)
Rankin, James S.


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Hayday, Arthur
Rawlinson, Rt. Hon. John Fredk. Peel


Brunner, Sir J.
Hemmerde, E. G.
Rawson, Alfred Cooper


Buckle, J.
Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Burnley)
Raynes, W. B.


Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James
Henderson, A. (Cardiff, South)
Remnant, Sir James


Bullock, Captain M.
Henn, Sir Sydney H.
Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.


Burman, J. B.
Herbert, Capt. Sidney (Scarborough)
Richardson, Lt.-Col. Sir P. (Chertsey)


Butt, Sir Alfred
Hill-Wood, Major Sir Samuel
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)


Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel
Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G.
Robertson, J. (Lanark, Bothwell)


Calne, Gordon Hall
Hodges, Frank
Robinson, W. E. (Burslem)


Cassels, J. D.
Hoffman, P. C.
Romeril, H. G.


Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)
Hope, Rt. Hon. J. F. (Sheffield, C.)
Ropner, Major L.


Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth.S.)
Horne, Sir R. S. (Glasgow, Hillhead)
Roundell, Colonel R. F.


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)
Howard, Hn. D. (Cumberland, Northrn.)
Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord H. (Ox. Univ.)
Howard-Bury, Lieut.-Col. C. K.
Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)


Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton
Hudson, J. H.
Sandeman, A. Stewart


Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Birm. W.)
Isaacs, G. A.
Savery, S. S.


Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood)
Jackson, R. F. (Ipswich)
Scott, Sir Leslie (Liverp'l, Exchange)


Chapman, Sir S.
James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert
Scurr, John


Charleton, H. C.
Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Sexton, James


Church, Major A. G.
Jephcott, A. R.
Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)


Clarke, A.
Jones, C. Sydney (Liverpool, W. Derby)
Sheffield, Sir Berkeley


Clarry, Reginald George
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Sherwood, George Henry


Clayton, G. C.
Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)
Simms, Dr. John M. (Co. Down)


Climie, R.
King, Captain Henry Douglas
Simon, E. D. (Manchester, Withington)


Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips
Lamb, J. Q.
Simpson, J. Hope


Conway, Sir W. Martin
Lambert, Rt. Hon. George
Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Univ., Belfst.)


Cope, Major William
Lane-Fox, George R.
Smith, W. R. (Norwich)


Costello, L. W. J.
Laverack, F. J.
Snell, Harry


Courthope, Lieut -Col. George L.
Law, A.
Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip


Craig, Captain C. C. (Antrim, South)
Lawrence, Susan (East Ham, North)
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)


Cralk, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry
Lawson, John James
Somerville, Daniel (Barrow-in-Furn'ss)


Crittall, V. G
Leach, W.
Stamford, T. W.


Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.
Lee, F.
Stanley, Lord


Crooke, J. Smédley (Deritend)
Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)
Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)


Curzon, Captain Viscount
Lloyd-Greame, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser


Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.
Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)
Sutcliffe, T.


Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)
Loverseed, J. F.
Thomas, Rt. Hon. James H. (Derby)


Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovll)
Lowth, T.
Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Lunn, William
Thomson, Sir W.Mitchell-(Croydon, S.)


Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)
McCrae, Sir George
Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)


Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)
McEntee, V. L.
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of


Dawson, Sir Philip
McLean, Major A.
Tout, W. J.


Deans, Richard Storry
Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.
Turton, Edmund Russborough


Dixey, A. C.
McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John
Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.


Dixon, Herbert
Makins, Brigadier-General E.
Viant, S. P.


Dodds, S. R.
Mansel, Sir Courtenay
Vivian, H.


Dukes, C.
March, S.
Ward, Lt.-Col. A.L.(Kingston-on-Hull)


Duncan, C.
Marriott, Sir J. A. R.
Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)


Eden, Captain Anthony
Mason, Lieut.-Col. Glyn K.
Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney


Edmondson, Major A. J.
Meller, R. J.
Wedgwood, Col. Rt. Hon. Josiah C.


Elveden, Viscount
Middleton, G.
Wells, S. R.


Emlyn-Jones, J. E. (Dorset, N.)
Mitchell R. M. (Perth & Kinross, Perth)
Weston, John Wakefield


Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith
Mitchell, W. F. (Saffron Walden)
Whiteley, W.


Eyres-Monsell, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.
Moore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Col. J. T. C.
Wignall, James


Falconer, J.
Morris, R. H.
Williams, A. (York, W.R., Sowerby)


FitzRoy, Capt. Rt. Hon. Edward A.
Morrison, Herbert (Hackney, South)
Williams, David (Swansea, E.)


Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)
Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)


Gardner, J. P. (Hammersmith, North)
Muir, John W.
Williams, Lt.-Col. T.S.B.(Kenningtn.)


Gates, Percy
Murray, Robert
Williams, Maj. A. S. (Kent, Sevenoaks)


Gaunt, Rear-Admiral Sir Guy R.
Nield, Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert
Wilson, Sir Charles H. (Leeds, Central)


Gibbins, Joseph
Nixon, H.
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)


Gibbs, Col, Rt. Hon. George Abraham
Oliver, George Harold
Wilson, Colonel M. J. (Richmond)


Gillett, George M.
Oman, Sir Charles William C.
Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)


Gilmour, Colonel Rt. Hon. Sir John
O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Hugh
Windsor, Walter


Gosling, Harry
Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Greene, W. P. Crawford
Paling, W.
Wise, Sir Fredric


Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)
Palmer, E. T.
Wood, Major Rt. Hon. Edward F. L.


Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)
Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)
Wright, W.


Grundy, T. W.
Pease, William Edwin
Yate, Colonel Sir Charles Edward


Guest, J. (York. Hemsworth)
Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)
Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T.


Guest, Dr. L. Haden (Southwark, N.)
Perkins, Colonel E. K.
Young, Andrew (Glasgow, Partick)


Guinness, Lieut.-Col. Rt. Hon. W. E.
Perry, S. F.



Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
Pleiou, D. P.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich)
Ponsonby, Arthur
Mr. T. Griffiths and Mr. Warne.


Noes


Ainsworth, Captain Charles
Aske, Sir Robert William
Birkett, W. N.


Allen R. Wilberforce (Leicester, S.)
Ayles, W. H.
Bonwick, A.


Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon Wilfrid W.
Bird, Sir R. B. (Wolverhampton, W.)
Bramsdon, Sir Thomas




Briant, Frank
Harvey, T. E. (Dewsbury)
Phillipps, Vivian


Brown, A. E. (Warwick, Rugby)
Haycock, A. W.
Pringle, W. M. R.


Buchanan, G.
Henderson, T. (Glasgow)
Rathbone, Hugh R.


Burnie, Major J. (Bootle)
Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)
Rea, W. Russell


Chapple, Dr. William A.
Hindle, F.
Rees, Sir Beddoe


Churchman, Sir Arthur C.
Hogbin, Henry Cairns
Rees, Capt. J. T. (Devon, Barnstaple)


Cobb, Sir Cyril
Hood, Sir Joseph
Remer, J. R.


Collins, Patrick (Walsall)
Hore-Belisha, Major Leslie
Ritson, J.


Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)
Howard, Hon. G. (Bedford, Luton)
Robinson, S. W. (Essex, Chelmsford)


Cunliffe, Joseph Herbert
Hume-Williams, Sir W. Ellis
Scrymgeour, E.


Darbishire, C. W.
Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.
Seely, H. M. (Norfolk, Eastern)


Davies, Alfred Thomas (Lincoln)
Jenkins, W. A. (Brecon and Radnor)
Sinclair, Major Sir A. (Caithness)


Davies, Ellis (Denbigh, Denbigh)
Jewson, Dorothea
Spears, Brigadier-General E. L.


Dickie, Captain J. P.
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Spence, R.


Dickson, T.
Johnston, Thomas (Stirling)
Spencer, H. H. (Bradford, South)


Doyle, Sir N. Grattan
Johnstone, Harcourt (Willesden, East)
Spero, Dr. G. E.


Duckworth, John
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Stephen, Campbell


Dunnlco, H.
Jewitt, W. A. (The Hartlepools)
Sunlight, J.


Edwards, G. (Norfolk, Southern)
Kay, Sir R. Newbald
Sutherland, Rt. Hon. Sir William


Edwards, John H. (Accrington)
Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M.
Tattersall, J. L.


England, Colonel A.
Kenyon, Barnet
Thomson, Trevelyan (Middlesbro. W.)


Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray
Kirkwood, D.
Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)


Ferguson, H.
Lumley, L. R.
Thornton, Maxwell R.


Fletcher, Lieut.-Com. R. T. H.
Mackinder, W.
Thurtle, E.


Galbraith, J. F. W.
Maclean, Neil (Glasgow. Govan)
Waddington, R.


Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton)
Maden, H.
Wallhead, Richard C.


Gavan-Duffy, Thomas
Martin, F. (Aberdeen & Kinc'dine, E.)
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)


George, Major G. L. (Pembroke)
Martin, W. H. (Dumbarton)
Webb, Lieut-Col. Sir H. (Cardiff, E.)


Gilbert, James Daniel
Meyler, Lieut.-Colonel H. M.
Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)


Gould, Frederick (Somerset, Frome)
Millar, J. D.
Wintringham, Margaret


Grigg, Lieut.-Col. Sir Edward W. M.
Milne, J. S. Wardlaw
Wolmer, Viscount


Groves, T.
Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)
Wood, Sir H. K. (Woolwich, West)


Gwynne, Rupert S.
Moulton, Major Fletcher
Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)


Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Muir, Ramsay (Rochdale)
Woodwark, Lieut.-Colonel G. G.


Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Shetland)
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Wragg, Herbert


Harbord, Arthur
Oliver, P. M. (Manchester, Blackley)



Hardie, George D.
Owen, Major G.
Tellers For the Noes.—


Harney, E. A.
Pattinson, S. (Horncastle)
Mr. Linfield and Colonel Penry


Harris, Percy A.
Perring, William George
Williams.

Mr. SPEAKER: I understand that the hon. Member for Govan (Mr. Maclean) does not, in view of the announcement of the Minister of Labour, desire to move his next Amendment.

Mr. MACLEAN: The announcement of the Minister of Labour had reference, I think, to the reduction of the waiting period. I desire, however, to move my Amendment with regard to the allowance to the parent or guardian in relation to a child attending an educational institution.

Mr. SPEAKER: I will call on the hon. Member to do that.

Mr. MACLEAN: I beg to move, in page 4, line 25, at the end, to insert the words
(d) where the child is 14 years of age and is attending an educational institution during the whole day five shillings per week shall be paid to the parent or guardian until the child is 16 years of age.
I do not know that this Amendment requires very much elaboration. There has always been a feeling on our part in favour of the child between 14 and 16 years of age attending an educational institution being enabled to receive the full benefit. We desire to see justice done
to the child and at the same time to assist the unemployed parent or guardian who is maintaining that child, it may be, under circumstances of very great difficulty. There are in this House yet Members who can recall the Debate which took place here when it was first proposed to give to the dependent child an allowance that would enable the parent to maintain it, and I think some of us can also recall the strenuous resistance with which the right hon. Member for North-West Camberwell (Dr.Macnamara) stuck to his guns on that point in the same way as the Minister of Labour has stuck to his guns to-day and resisted every attempt made by Members in this House to bring the child from 14 to 16 years of age within the scope of receiving the allowance. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for North-West Camberwell shakes his head.

Dr. MACNAMARA: The proposal was accepted.

Mr. MACLEAN: After a Debate it was accepted, but the point is that there has always been an endeavour on the part of a number of Members to get the child brought under this provision. We desire now to see that child's allowance increased. The child between 14 and 16
years of age who is being kept at an educational institution is in a different category, both with regard to age and with regard to the passing to and fro the dress that it requires, and, very often the taking of meals from home, simple and meagre as those meals may be. Not only in the interests of the family which is undertaking some sacrifices to keep that child at school while the head of the family is unemployed, but in the interests of the child itself, we consider that the amount of allowance given in respect of that child should be increased from 2s to 5s.

Mr. NICHOL: I beg to second the Amendment.
When the Bill was originally introduced there were provisions in it for children between the ages of 14 and 16 years, but in its wisdom of its unwisdom this House decided by an overwhelming majority to cut that provision out of the Financial Resolution. Everyone of us, I am sure, is in favour of improved education for the child over 14 years of age. We all know hundreds of cases of parents who have made a struggle, even with small wages, to provide further education for their children. Anyone who has any acquaintance with secondary school teaching in public authority schools knows the tragic tale that is told of the parent who, while in work, makes a sacrifice to keep his child at school. But when unemployment comes the school course has to be cut short for the sake of the very few shillings that the child can earn. The Amendment provides a method of over coming most of the difficulties in the original proposition of the Bill. It will continue the education only of the children whose parents have made a sacrifice and who have become unemployed while the child was at school. I could mention hundreds of cases not only of the disorganisation that the withdrawal of a child causes in school life, but of intense hardship Very often a father takes his boy or girl away from a secondary school, and within a month or two he gets fresh work and feels that the child has been sacrificed. The Amendment will help really deserving people who wish to help their children

Mr. SHAW: I am sorry that my hon. Friend is going to force me into the
Lobby again. I must stand to my guns. I am accepting a really big Amendment to the Bill by reducing the waiting period and by increasing the bridge from three weeks to six, and there I must call a halt. I would oppose this Amendment altogether apart from general financial grounds, because I am afraid that it will have a very reactionary effect. Those who recollect the Debates in this House on the proposal to insure children between the ages of 14 and 16 will remember the talk about psychology and obscurantists and the rest of it. I venture to ask those who believe in those ideas what they think this would do so far as a really genuine national effort to give children a chance is concerned. I think the whole system of the education of children between 14 and 16 is too big a question to be dealt with inside the scope of an Unemployment Insurance Bill. I am afraid that your obscurantist authorities, who you said would take the wording of the Bill as stereotyping what they ought to do, would take this proposal as stereotyping what they ought to do in another way. It would be a very bad thing to encourage the idea that the education of children between 14 and 16 can be dealt with in an Unemployment Insurance Bill.

Mr. MACLEAN: There is no desire to take the children out of the control of the Education Acts. This Amendment would merely extend the principle which has been established already in previous Unemployment Insurance Acts, or, rather, it would extend the amount of such principle as is already established. There is no obscurantism about it.

Mr. SHAW: The question of the education of children between the ages of 14 and 16 years is altogether outside the scope of the 1s. or 2s. per week paid to an unemployed workman. It ought to be dealt with by another Ministry. As far as benefits are concerned, they ought to be uniform. I am sorry that I am forced into the Lobby against my hon. Friend, but the declaration which I have made holds good. The concession of the £4,500,000, and the six weeks' bridge instead of three weeks, must be the limit of the concessions which I can make.

Dr. MACNAMARA: I do not think my right hon. Friend at all understands what has been put to him. In the
Unemployed Workers' Dependants (Temporary Provision) Act of 1921, we put in this definition:
The expression 'a dependent child' means any child under the age of 14 years who is maintained wholly or mainly at the cost of the person claiming the grant, or any child between the ages of 14 and 16 who is under full-time instruction in a day school and is so maintained as aforesaid.
If this is obscurantism it was begun in 1921. Of course, it is nothing of the kind. It says to the parent, "Well, at 14 this 2s. will stop, but if you like to keep the child at a school between 14 and 16, you will get the 2s." That is splendid. It is not obscurantism. Now my hon. Friend says, "Make it 5s." That is far more educational still. The point is that we really cannot go on piling charges on this Bill. The Fund cannot stand it. We shall smash the whole thing to pieces. 2s. a week between 14 and 16 is quite excellent as an encouragement to keep a child at school—not to put it on the labour market. I would like to see the amount 5s., but you cannot take it out of this Fund. Go to the Board of Education. They have maintenance allowances, and spent £750,000 last year. That is where you can get the money. By this proposal you will be ruining the Fund even earlier than it will be ruined as it is.

Mr. HANNON: It is a great pity that there should be a system of submitting Amendments which obviously tend to destroy the Unemployment Insurance Fund. The first duty of this House, in relation to this Bill, is to safeguard the Fund. In answer to a question put by me the other day the Minister stated that the Fund owes over £7,000,000 at present. The first duty of the House is to bring the Fund back to solvency at the earliest possible moment. Certain Amendments, in relation to which a strong appeal can be made to sentiment, tend to burden the Fund still more. The right hon. Gentleman has said that instead of the Fund being solvent in June, 1926, as was originally contemplated, the new charges put upon it will, as far as can be estimated, prevent its being solvent until May or June, 1927. Nobody in this House seems fully to appreciate that the Fund is created by contributions from employers and employed and from the State. When you are legislating for unemployment insurance you ought to have regard for
the interests of the contributors to the Fund as well as for the interests of the beneficiaries under it. The employers are contributing a very substantial proportion of this Fund, but in all the discussions that take place very little regard is had to their interests. The House ought to safeguard the interests of the employers who have generously borne their share of this burden, though for them no one in the House has a single word of sympathy. I am very glad that the right hon. Gentleman, in spite of his evident desire to extend his Bill to the utmost, is resisting these Amendments. If this Amendment is carried to a Division it will certainly get substantial support from this side of the House.

Mr. MARLEY: I think that, as has been stated, the Minister of Labour has missed the point of this Amendment. Suppose an employed man has a child who has already been sent to a higher educational institution. If subsequently that man becomes unemployed while the child is between the ages of 14 and 16 years the proposal of the Amendment is that the allowance in respect of the child shall be 5s. per week as long as the child continues to go to school. Any hon. Member who is interested in educational work in a constituency where there is a considerable amount of unemployment must know that complaints are constant from schools and from parents that owing to unemployment, children have had to be withdrawn from secondary schools. It is suggested that this is a question for the Board of Education. I take the line that maintenance grants for education ought to be given even when the parent is fully employed, if that parent could not reasonably be expected to support the child whilst at school. This proposal only asks the House to encourage the parent who has already accepted the responsibility of keeping a child at school for secondary school purposes. It seeks to encourage that parent in a time of severe hardship and to give opportunities for better organisation and development in the schools.
The Minister may say, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North-West Camberwell (Dr. Macnamara) said, that the fund will not stand it, but I should like to hear from the Minister what would be the cost of the concession. I do not think an extraordinary number of
children will be in the position of having to discontinue their educational courses because of parents being unemployed, and we do not intend that children should be continued in elementary schools after they are 14 in order to get this advantage. This proposal is to assist in cases where higher education is being given. The Minister may suggest that the proposal is obscurantist, like the proposal to introduce insurance for children between 14 and 16. I think this is an entirely different proposal. It applies to children already in a higher institution in regard to whom you already admit a responsibility of 2s., and we desire to increase the amount. The proposal is in line with the Income Tax arrangement- concerning children up to 16 years of age. In respect to children who are at school up to 16 years of age, a rebate is allowed in connection with the Income Tax. I trust the Minister will seriously consider this Amendment because I do not think the amount involved can be very large, and if the fund will not stand it, then I fear the fund will not stand many of the other charges which are proposed in other Amendments.

Mr. REMER: We ought to consider exactly where we stand in regard to this matter. Proposals are being made which everyone of us would like to support if we could see a possibility of carrying them, but we must be guided by the capacity of the fund to bear the proposed charges, and we have had placed before us an actuarial estimate which shows that there is only £100,000 a year to spare, indicating that the position is most precarious. I cannot see how anybody can vote for increased expenditure who is not desirous of wrecking the scheme, and I protest strongly against this scheme being made the subject for a sort of Dutch auction between the various political parties with hon. Members getting up one after the other proposing either increased contributions or increased benefits. I have no doubt if the Minister were to give way, the, next Amendment would propose to increase the amount still further, and while everyone would like to see better benefits and greater facilities given to the unemployed, we must have some regard to the position of the fund and the necessity for continuing unemployment insurance. The first thing we should do
is to place the fund in a solvent position and get rid of the £7,000,000 liability. Then we can talk about increased benefits. The right hon. Gentleman the Minister a short time ago from these benches, very often took part in Dutch auctions of the sort to which I have referred; I admire his pluck in taking a firm stand on this matter, and I hope he will continue to take that stand.

Mr. LANSBURY: I appeal to the Minister to run away from his guns on this occasion. Members in all parts of the House two or three weeks ago made a great appeal on behalf of the children; to-night we appear to be forgetting the children and to be thinking only about £s. d. A number of us voted on the last occasion with very heavy hearts against the 3s., and some of us had not the courage to vote one way or the other, but on this Amendment there is something more to be taken into account than the stability of the fund or considerations of money at all. When an Estimate has been overspent there is such a thing as a Supplementary Estimate, and if the fund were to get into difficulties through giving the children what is now asked it should be easy for this rich country to find the money and make up the fund. I appeal to my right hon. Friend the Minister, and to the Members of the House however from another point of view. I ask them to consider the wholesale demoralisation of young children which is going on. No man who has anything to do with industrial areas can fail to be appalled at the shocking waste of young life which is going on. I do not know what it costs to educate a child in an elementary day school. The effort put in by the teachers cannot be measured or valued, but one can value the £s. d. involved, and you are wasting that money in the case of thousands of children in the industrial areas. All we ask is that the mother of a child should have approximately enough to keep the child at school. I have listened to hon. Members in this House talking about good parents who struggle to keep the children at school. I know thousands of good parents who are utterly unable to keep the children at school; I know mothers who are obliged to drive the children out to work to get the means of livelihood and the work to which these children go, is generally of the "dead-end" variety.
Especially is that true in the part from which I come, and it is because this proposal would give the mother, at least, enough to enable her to keep the child at school that I beg of the Minister to reconsider the whole matter and let us do this little act of justice to the children.

Mr. SHAW: No, I cannot reconsider the matter. I have gone to what I consider to be the very limit of concession that can be made with safety to the scheme for the moment and safety to the scheme for the future. I have to envisage the time two years hence when this Measure will lapse, and I have to consider who will be standing here when it lapses and what the result will be. I can easily see the scheme being overloaded, and the overloading being made an excuse for cutting down what we are doing to-day. Apart altogether from financial considerations—and I have never even inquired into the cost—I think this is the wrong place in which to deal with what is purely an educational problem. That is the wrong way of dealing with a matter concerning the education of children between the ages of 14 and 16. I would call attention to the fact that in the insurance scheme the principle of the same benefits for the same contributions has been departed from, in that the married man with children gets more, in proportion for the same contribution, than the single man. I have not interfered with that proposal, and I do not intend to do so, but, frankly, I consider that this Amendment, apart altogether from what it would cost, is quite wrong in connection with an unemployment insurance scheme. The problem is purely educational; it should be dealt with by the Board of Education and should not be in any way specially dealt with in this unemployment scheme. If the Amendment is forced to a Division, I shall reluctantly vote against it, but vote against it I must, because the absolute limit of concession has been made by the Government, when one considers the ramifications of this Measure and what the effect is likely to be, two years hence, if the burden put upon it happens to be more than the contributions will bear.

Mr. MASTERMAN: I only intervene because I have a personal interest in this matter. It was on my Motion that the
House agreed that we should not force children into the unemployment insurance scheme, in which the great bulk of their contributions would go to adults and not to their own benefit. We then asked my right hon. Friend if he could not see his way to bring in some kind of Resolution by which some benefit could be attained for children between 14 and 16, which I believe the whole House desires irrespective of party. Here, obviously, is an opportunity, and an opportunity which can be taken without increasing the charges on the Insurance Fund at all. I make no complaint of it, but I would point out that the right hon. Gentleman, without consultation with any party, stated that, having had applications for money which would extend the deficiency period, he proposed to accept a demand that the waiting period should be reduced to three days, which would cost him £4,500,000, and therefore he could give nothing else. He should consult the opinion of the House, apart from party, as to whether, as a matter of fact, that is the best way of dealing with £4,500,000. I am sure the hon. Member, who made that proposal in Committee, would be willing to modify the Amendment on the Paper, so that less money might be paid from the Fund, and something might be done for the children. No one in the House imagines that what the Amendment suggests is not a good thing in itself. With the exception of three Members the House voted with me when we rejected the unemployment insurance proposal for children, and the House is under an obligation to do something for these children. I earnestly ask the Minister to see if he cannot modify the proposal with regard to the waiting period and accept the Amendment.

8.0 P.M.

Mr. MAXTON: I ask the Minister to reconsider his decision, particularly in view of his own statement that he has not considered the cost. I believe it is true, on the figures used in this Debate, that this Bill is carrying just now all that the funds can actuarially stand on the present contributions, but that is only true on the assumption that we are adding to expenditure without putting any income in, and I suggest that if the right hon. Gentleman can keep three boys or girls at school by giving an extra 3s. a week to the Unemployment Fund then a new actuarial factor comes in. If the keep-
ing of these children at school takes one unemployed off the Fund and puts him into a job that he and his schoolboy son are presently competing for as unemployed persons, if it takes three boys and puts them on the Fund at 3s. a week each and takes the father off at 25s., that is a new actuarial factor which is worthy of consideration by the Minister, and I ask him if he will not seriously consider it from that point of view, which is essentially unemployment and not education, and take this risk. After all, insurance is always a gamble. I admit that, generally speaking, hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who engage in that business arrange in this particular form of gambling that the bookmaker always wins, but I do not know that it is necessary for the right hon. Gentleman to take that view. In insurance there ought to be a real risk for the people who are holding the risk as well as for the people who are insured, and I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman should take it in this case.

Mr. PRINGLE: This Amendment has been very strongly pressed, and the only grounds upon which the Minister has resisted it are, first, that it will make the fund bankrupt and, secondly, that it is altogether outside the provisions of an Unemployment Insurance Bill. He has not given us any estimate of the cost. I have looked at the proceedings in Committee when this question was formerly discussed, and I observe that on that occasion the Parliamentary Secretary gave no estimate. I think the House should know exactly what it will cost. We wish to give the right hon. Gentleman credit for the concession that he has agreed to make, but it may be that in this matter he may readjust that concession in order to meet this Amendment. He has promised to reduce the waiting period to three days. May he not modify that concession and, instead of reducing it to three days, simply reduce it to four days, and then there would be ample money with which to make this concession? It is infinitely more in the public interest that adequate provision should be made for the education of the children of the unemployed men during this period than that there should be a day more or less on the waiting period. I am sure that hon. Members above the
Gangway would in the main agree that this concession is of more value in the public interest than a day more or less in respect to the waiting period.
If this provision is not made, it is very likely that you are going to increase the numbers of the unemployed. If a boy of this age is taken from school, he is competing in the labour market and is increasing the difficulties from the point of view of unemployment. I think the case which was mentioned by one hon. Member is one which would appeal to Members on all sides of the House. It is the case of the man thrown out of work, with a boy between 14 and 16 years of age in a secondary school, but the unemployment pay is inadequate to provide for the family, and in those circumstances the parent is driven to the necessity of withdrawing that child from school, breaking his chance of further education, and probably embittering that child for life. If that child, who has an aptitude, presumably, for further education, is withdrawn from school simply because of his parent's misfortune in being out of employment, it is going to embitter that child for the future, and he is going to feel that he has a wrong against society, and I suggest to hon. Members opposite that it is not to the interest either of their party or of the State as a whole to multiply the number of people who are adolescent and who feel that they have wrongs of this kind against society. The Minister's contention that this is outside the unemployment insurance scheme has been met by my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Camberwell (Dr. Macnamara), who, I regret to say, however, threw his shield over the Minister in resisting this Amendment. He cannot be blind, as he was not blind before, to the importance of maintaining these children at school, and I think he might join us in pressing on the Minister to give way.

Miss BONDFIELD: I would like to say that, with regard to the cost of this Amendment, if it were carried on the assumption of 1,000,000 unemployed, the cost would be about £80,000. I wish to put two points to the House, however. The Debate on this side has assumed that the great urgency of the matter is to enable these parents to continue their children's education, but there is no substance in that point, from
the point of view of unemployment insurance, because you are only going to pay the 5s. as long as the father is unemployed. Assuming that the child is at school, you then differentiate between one child and another. The father may be employed, but he may be having almost as hard a time as the person who is unemployed, and the principle we have been endeavouring to maintain in the Act is to see that the benefits shall be equally distributed. The principle we had in view in our Clause dealing with children between 14 and 16 was to afford reasonable provision for all children unemployed between those ages who had left the care of the education authorities. I am a little astonished now that the House appears to be in favour of differentiating between those children. A child itself may be unemployed, but if the father is employed there is no chance for that child to get the advantage of this grant. It. is the unemployed child that we want to get hold of, and if it is a question of keeping the child at school, that is a matter for the Education Ministry. On that ground alone, I shall go into the Lobby against this Amendment. To keep the child at school is the business of the education authority; to deal with the unemployed child is the business of the Unemployment Insurance Act.

Mr. EDMUND HARVEY: The Parliamentary Secretary's argument would have carried greater weight with the House if we could have had an assurance that the Government were determined at a very early date this Session to deal with this question through the Board of Education. When the House dealt with this matter on the Financial Resolution, we had on the Treasury Bench, in joint charge of

this section of the Bill, the President of the Board of Education. It was evident that the Government regarded this as a matter affecting the Board of Education as much as the Ministry of Labour, and I think we must ask that the Ministry should deal with this matter in a wider spirit than merely in connection with the framework of this Bill. When the Financial Resolution was discussed, the whole House was anxious to do something to promote further education for these children, and I am sure the Government would have the whole-hearted support, not of one party only, but of all parties, if they would make a promise that this matter should be dealt with this Session through maintenance scholarships under the Board of Education. If this is not done, I am quite sure that we have no other option than to vote for this Amendment. I am convinced that the House will not accept the view that the charge will be so large. The number of parents, unfortunately, who will be able to make use of it will be all too few. We ought to encourage every parent under the difficult circumstances of to-day to keep his children at school. I should like to add this further point, that when the Financial Resolution was brought forward the Government were prepared to make a Treasury grant in respect of the children's contribution, but that grant has disappeared, of course, and that money, which the Government were prepared to vote in the interests of the children then, I think we have a right to call upon them to devote to this particular purpose now.

Question put, "That those words be there inserted in the Bill."

The House divided: Ayes, 135; Noes, 233.

Division No. 149.]
AYES.
[8.13 p.m.


Ackroyd, T. R.
Climie, R.
Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton)


Acland, Rt. Hon. Francis Dyke
Cluse, W. S.
George, Major G. L. (Pembroke)


Allen, R. Wilberforce (Leicester, S.)
Collins, Patrick (Walsall)
Gilbert, James Daniel


Alstead, R.
Cove, W. G.
Gould, Frederick (Somerset, Frome)


Asks, Sir Robert William
Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)
Grigg, Lieut.-Col. Sir Edward W. M.


Ayles, W. H.
Darbishire, C. W.
Groves, T.


Baker, Walter
Davies, Ellis (Denbigh, Denbigh)
Guest, Dr. L. Haden (Southwark, N.)


Barclay, R. Noton
Dickie, Captain J. P.
Harbord, Arthur


Barnes, A.
Dickson, T.
Hardie, George D


Batey, Joseph
Dixey, A. C.
Harney, E. A.


Birkett, W. N.
Dodds, S. R.
Harris, John (Hackney, North)


Bonwick, A.
Doyle, Sir N. Grattan
Harvey, T. E. (Dewsbury)


Bramsdon, Sir Thomas
Dunnico, H.
Haycock, A. W.


Briant, Frank
Edwards, John H. (Accrington)
Henderson, T. (Glasgow)


Brown, A. E. (Warwick, Rugby)
England, Colonel A.
Hillary, A. E.


Buchanan, G.
Falconer, J.
Hindle, F.


Burnie, Major J. (Bootle)
Franklin, L. B.
Hoffman, P. C.


Chapman, Sir S.
Galbraith, J. F. W.
Hore-Belisha, Major Leslie


Jackson, R. F. (Ipswich)
Morel, E. D.
Sinclair, Major Sir A. (Caithness)


Jenkins, W. A. (Brecon and Radnor)
Morrison, Herbert (Hackney, South)
Somerville, Daniel (Barrow-in-Furness)


Jewson, Dorothea
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)
Spence, R.


Johnston, Thomas (Stirling)
Mosley, Oswald
Spencer, H. H. (Bradford, South)


Johnstone, Harcourt (Willesden, East)
Moulton, Major Fletcher
Spero, Dr. G. E.


Jones, C. Sydney (Liverpool, W. Derby)
Muir, Ramsay (Rochdale)
Stephen, Campbell


Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Murrell, Frank
Sunlight, J.


Jones, Rt. Hon. Leif (Camborne)
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Sutherland, Rt. Hon. Sir William


Jowitt, W. A. (The Hartlepools)
Oliver, George Harold
Tattersall, J. L.


Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M.
Oliver, P. M. (Manchester, Blackley)
Thomson, Trevelyan (Middlesbro. W.)


Kenyon, Barnet
Owen, Major G.
Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton. E.)


Kirkwood, D.
Patlinson, S. (Horncastle)
Thornton, Maxwell R.


Lansbury, George
Phillipps, Vivian
Viant, S. P.


Laverack, F. J.
Plikington, R. R.
Vivian, H.


Lawrence, Susan (East Ham, North)
Potts, John S.
Wallhead, Richard C.


Linfield, F. C.
Pringle, W. M. R.
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)


Loverseed, J. F.
Purcell, A. A.
Webb, Lieut.-Col. Sir H. (Cardiff, E.)


McCrae, Sir George
Raffan, P. W.
Whiteley, W.


Mackinder, W.
Raffety, F. W.
Williams, A. (York, W.R., Sowerby)


Maden, H.
Rea, W. Russell
Williams, Col. P. (Middlesbrough, E.)


Marley, James
Rees, Sir Beddoe
Windsor, Walter


Mason, Lieut.-Col. Glyn K.
Rees, Capt. J. T. (Devon, Barnstaple)
Wintringham, Margaret


Masterman, Rt. Hon. C. F. G.
Ritson, J.
Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)


Maxton, James
Robinson, S. W. (Essex, Chelmsford)
Woodwark, Lieut.-Colonel G. G.


Meyler, Lieut.-Colonel H. M.
Scrymgeour, E.
Wragg, Herbert


Millar, J. D.
Scurr, John



Mitchell, R. M. (Perth & Kinross, Perth)
Simon, E. D. (Manchester, Withington)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Montague, Frederick
Simpson, J. Hope
Mr. Neil Maclean and Mr. Nichol.


NOES


Adamson, Rt. Hon. William
Crittall, V. G.
Henn, Sir Sydney H.


Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)
Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.
Hennessy, Major J. R. G.


Ainsworth, Captain Charles
Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend)
Herbert, Capt. Sidney (Scarborough)


Alexander, Brig.-Gen. Sir W. (Glas.C.)
Cunliffe, Joseph Herbert
Hobhouse, A. L.


Ammon, Charles George
Dalkeith, Earl of
Hodges, Frank


Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.
Davies, Alfred Thomas (Lincoln)
Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (St. Marylebone)


Astor, Maj. Hn. John J. (Kent, Dover)
Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)
Hohler, Sir Gerald Fitzroy


Atholl, Duchess of
Davies, Maj. Geo. F.(Somerset, Yeovil)
Hope, Rt. Hon. J. F. (Sheffield, C.)


Attlee, Major Clement R.
Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Howard, Hn. D. (Cumberland, Northrn.)


Austin, Sir Herbert
Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)
Hudson, J. H.


Banton, G.
Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)
Hume-Williams, Sir W. Ellis


Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)
Dawson, Sir Philip
Isaacs, G. A.


Barnston, Major Sir Harry
Deans, Richard Storry
James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthber


Beckett, Sir Gervase
Dixon, Herbert
Jenkins, W (Glamorgan, Neath)


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.
Dukes, C.
Jephcott, A. R.


Berry, Sir George
Duncan, C.
John, William (Rhondda, West)


Betterton, Henry B.
Eden, Captain Anthony
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)


Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Edmondson, Major A. J.
Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)


Bird, Sir R. B. (Wolverhampton, W.)
Edwards, G. (Norfolk, Southern)
Kay, Sir R. Newbald


Blades, Sir George Rowland
Elveden, Viscount
King, Captain Henry Douglas


Blundell, F. N.
Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith
Law, A.


Bondfield, Margaret
Eyres-Monsell, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.
Leach, W.


Bourne, Robert Croft
Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray
Lee, F.


Bowater, Sir T. Vansittart
Ferguson, H.
Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)


Bowyer, Captain G. E. W.
Fremantle, Lieut. Colonel Francis E.
Lloyd-Greame, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip


Brass, Captain W.
Gardner, J. P. (Hammersmith, North)
Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)


Brassey, Sir Leonard
Gaunt, Rear-Admiral Sir Guy R.
Lowth, T.


Briscoe, Captain Richard George
Gavan-Duffy, Thomas
Lumley, L. R.


Broad, F. A.
Gibbins, Joseph
Lunn, William


Bromfield, William
Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham
McEntee, V. L.


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Gillett, George M.
McLean, Major A.


Brunner, Sir J.
Gilmour, Colonel Rt. Hon. Sir John
Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.


Buckle, J.
Gosling, Harry
Makins, Brigadier-General E.


Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James
Greene, W. P. Crawford
Mansel, Sir Courtenay


Burman, J. B.
Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)
March, S.


Butler, Sir Geoffrey
Greenwood, William (Stockport)
Marriott, Sir J. A. R.


Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel
Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)
Martin, F. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, E.)


Caine, Gordon Hall
Griffith, Rt. Hon. Sir Ellis
Martin, W. H. (Dumbarton)


Cassels, J. D.
Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Meller, R. J.


Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth.S.)
Grundy, T. W.
Middleton, G.


Charleton, H. C.
Guest, J. (York, Hemsworth)
Milne, J. S. Wardlaw


Church, Major A. G.
Gwynne, Rupert S.
Mitchell, W. F. (Saffron Walden)


Churchman, Sir Arthur C.
Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
Moore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Col. J. T. C.


Clarke, A.
Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich)
Morris, R. H.


Clarry, Reginald George
Hall, F. (York, W.R., Normanton)
Muir, John W.


Clayton, G. C.
Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Murray, Robert


Cobb, Sir Cyril
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)


Compton, Joseph
Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon
Nield, Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert


Conway, Sir W. Martin
Harvey, C. M. B. (Aberd'n & Kincardne)
Nixon, H.


Cope, Major William
Hastings, Somerville (Reading)
Oman, Sir Charles William C.


Courthope, Lieut.-Col. George L.
Hayday, Arthur
O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Hugh


Craig, Captain C. C. (Antrim, South)
Hemmerde, E. G.
Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William


Craik, Rt. Hon, Sir Henry
Henderson, A. (Cardiff, South)
Paling, W.




Palmer, E. T.
Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)
Waddington, R.


Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)
Shepperson, E. W.
Ward, Lt.-Col. A.L. (Kingston-on-Hull)


Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)
Sherwood, George Henry
Watson, Sir F. (Pudsey and Otley)


Perkins, Colonel E. K.
Simms, Dr. John M. (Co. Down)
Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)


Perring, William George
Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John
Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney


Perry, S. F.
Sinclair, Col.T. (Queen's Univ., Belfast)
Wedgwood, Col. Rt. Hon. Josiah C.


Pleiou, D. P.
Smith, W. R. (Norwich)
Wells, S. R.


Ponsonby, Arthur
Snell, Harry
Wignall, James


Raine, W.
Spender-Clay, Lieut.-Colonel H. H.
Williams, David (Swansea, E.)


Rawson, Alfred Cooper
Spoor, B. G.
Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)


Raynes, W. R.
Stamford, T. W.
Williams, Lt.-Col. T.S.B. (Kenningtn.)


Remer, J. R.
Stanley, Lord
Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)


Remnant, Sir James
Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)
Wilson, Sir Charles H. (Leeds, Central)


Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)


Richardson, Lt.-Col. Sir P. (Chertsey)
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser
Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)


Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Sutcliffe, T.
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Robinson, Sir T. (Lancs., Stretford)
Thomas, Rt. Hon. James H. (Derby)
Wise, Sir Fredric


Romeril, H. G.
Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)
Wood, Major Rt. Hon. Edward F. L.


Ropner, Major L.
Thomson, Sir W. Mitchell-(Croydon, S
Wright, W.


Rose, Frank H.
Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)
Yate, Colonel Sir Charles Edward


Roundell, Colonel R. F.
Thurtle, E.
Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T.


Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of
Young, Andrew (Glasgow, Partick)


Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)
Tout, W. J.



Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)
Turner, Ben
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Sandeman, A. Stewart
Turton, Edmund Russborough
Mr. John Robertson and Mr.


Sexton, James
Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.
Warne.

It being a Quarter-past Eight of the Clock, and there being Private Business set down by direction of the Chairman of Ways and Means under Standing Order No. 8, further Proceeding was postponed without Question, put.

LANARKSHIRE HYDROELECTRIC POWER BILL [Lords] (by Order).

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Mr. DICKSON: I beg to move to leave, out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day three months."
At a time like the present, when there is so much unemployment in all parts of the country, one rises with considerable hesitancy to oppose a Bill which may give the promise, or even appearance of a promise, of immediate employment to any number of men, however small that number may be, and I think one could only oppose the Bill in such circumstances if, in his opinion, there were very real reasons for such opposition. I know it may be urged in the country by our opponents opposite that in opposing a Bill of this character we are tending to aggravate rather than minimise that great problem of unemployment with which we have been so often taunted. Particularly because I happen to be a member of the division with which this
Bill deals, I have, perhaps, more to fear from any such argument than other hon. Members in this House, but I am one of those who believe that there are some things that transcend local considerations, and transcend the desire to catch votes in a particular area.
For that reason I oppose this Measure, because I believe there are very important national considerations involved here. I think we can pay too heavy a price in the future for any chance of an immediate or present advantage, and I think the Government would do well, in viewing this Measure, not only to view it as a separate Measure dealing with a particular area of water resources in Lanarkshire, but to try to view it as part of the total water supply and water resources not only in the whole of Scotland, but in the whole of Britain. Those of us who are opposing this Bill think the time is long past for this House, and particularly the Government, to take into serious consideration whether it is going to permit the growing up of additional monopolies, which have to be taken over by the communities at a greatly enhanced and bloated price The right hon. Gentleman who leads the party sitting below the Gangway warned Members sitting on these benches—and they trembled not at all !—and warned the House, that he would not permit any socialistic experiments. He did not proceed to tell us precisely what he meant, for no doubt he would have found himself in considerable difficulty, because it would have involved him as an honest politician, objecting not only to socialistic experi-
meats which are threatened, but socialistic experiments which are in operation! Those of us who are opposing this Bill desire at the very outset, so far at least as Lanarkshire is concerned, to prevent the growing up there of a monopoly which may subsequently have to be purchased at an enhanced price by the community, as has been the case with regard to the gas in that community, and will certainly be the case there with regard to the tramway system.
This Bill is promoted by a company termed the Lanarkshire Hydro-Electric Power Company, and its members are those who are in favour of competition, or who give lip service to the merits and virtues of competition upon public platforms, but give the lie to it in the conduct of their own business and industries by wiping all competition. These persons will, no doubt, tell us that this is an additional company coming in where there is already a company supplying electricity in a large part of that county. An examination of the Bill, however, shows this is to be a contract company whose business it will be to erect works and to make the preparations for utilising the water supply. Immediately those works are in position, and are in commercial operation, then they have to pass on to the Clyde Valley Electric Company all the electricity generated at the works. The position then will be that the Clyde Valley Company, so far as the actual supply in the county is concerned, is part of a monopoly; and this particular company in the Bill, now formed under a different name, is merely the company which is going to add to the monopoly already created, held, and pursued by the Clyde Valley Electricity Company. The position is this, that you have in Lanarkshire for the first time—I know you have it elsewhere in Scotland, in the Grampians and elsewhere—a proposal to use the natural resources of the country which above all other things, if they ought to be anything in the nature of a monopoly, ought to be a monopoly in the hands of the people residing in the area. We say that such a proposal should not receive, in appearance, the approval of a Labour Government with more or less—very often less—of a Socialist bias that should not be in any form approval given to such a project to increase a monopoly which is growing
up before our eyes. Hon. Members may have heard of these beautiful falls that are in my division; and I just wish to tell the House that I represent more of the Clyde than the Clyde Members put together. I represent the Clyde before it becomes turbulent. The proposal is to utilise the Bennington, the Stonebyres and the Corra Linn falls up in the higher Clyde valley.
The situation here is this: that you have a peculiar opportunity for the Government to give some impetus to national ownership or communal ownership of national resources to be utilised in the generation of power. This estate is owned by Sir Charles Ross, of Balnagowan Castle, who also owns the Bonnington estate on which two of the falls involved in this scheme are situated. This gentleman, I believe, is willing to hand over under certain conditions—I am not saying whether the conditions are good, bad, or indifferent—but the fact is that he is willing to hand over his total water rights in these falls, and in the ground necessary, to carry out the plan so far his estate is concerned. I want to give to this House some of the reasons why at least there should not be a final settlement, and why there should be some delay so that the matter may have further consideration.
Another reason why we object to this Bill is—why I, at least, object to it—is that these particular falls are situated in one of the most romantic parts of Scotland. Apart from the natural beauty of these falls the part is one hallowed to all Scottish patriots—I do not mean particular types of patriots, but those who really love their country, because of its association with William Wallace, who was so unhandsomely treated by one of our English Kings in the hall below. This estate has been handed down to the present owner from William Wallace. We are going to protest against those parts falling into the hands of private people for the pure exploitation of the workers. We know only too well in Lanarkshire, more, perhaps, than any other county in Scotland, how grossly materialistic have been the ideas as to private profits. We are often told by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite that we have a materialistic philosophy, that we are the true materialists; but it is not the Socialists who have run the coal mines, it is not the Socialists who
have run the steel works in these parts, or have taken wealth from the bosom of Mother Earth and then thrown the refuse in her face, as in the case of coal and slag heaps, and so on.
We want, earnestly, to put this point of view that, if our natural resources ought to be developed that this is essentially a case where the local authorities should be supported in every possible way, financed and encouraged by the Government of the day—that this is a case where a start could be made. We are putting this point of view, for this particular area has some sanctity for Scottish people. They feel that the area ought to be controlled and the resources in the area be utilised by the people who represent the whole community with regard to their feelings, emotions and idealism. If this be done they will take a much greater care of the associations of such area than a private company or some concern out for profit-making and dividend-producing. I, therefore, submit this case, and I want to put it to the Government that there is here, not only a question of local patriotism, or of national patriotism, which some people may discard as weighing a small grain of sand in the balance against profit-making and private enterprise. But the Government, as I say, has come, or is very soon to come, to the parting of the ways. They have got to make up their mind whether with their patronage or permission they are going to allow the growing up of a monopoly which will make all other monopolies pale into insignificance because of its power and size, I think the Government ought to take its courage in both hands, and to say that this country has suffered sufficiently in the past in respect to these monopolies, and which the communities have had to buy back at deliberately enhanced prices. Such monopolies are very often used, not with a view of serving the community, but to bleed the community in which the monopoly is allowed to be. We do suggest to the Minister of Transport that there is time for delay, and cause for delay, and for the consideration of the facts. Time given for consideration may delay the employment of some men who otherwise might obtain employment, and we regret that. I have already said that I am
opposing, and will be most likely to suffer because of the attitude I am taking up. I hope that the Government will give us some assurance, some indication that they are not entirely losing sight of this monopoly which is growing up before their eyes, and which may subsequently have to be brought back at the cost of millions, and that they will decide that the whole people should have the benefit of the natural resources of the place, that these ought not to be privately owned and used; should be for the benefit of the whole people, and not vested in private hands.

Mr. WRIGHT: I beg to second the Motion for the rejection of this Bill.
I think I can speak for most hon. Members representing Scottish divisions. We feel that this is a matter of considerable importance to us because it is another instance of the use of the natural resources of the country for the purpose of making private profit. I feel very strongly on this question because the county of Lanarkshire is one of the richest in the whole of Scotland so far as natural resources are concerned, and it is now proposed that these natural resources should be used to the disadvantage of our people to an extent not equalled in any other part of the country. We do not want this exploitation to grow up in regard to what we believe to be one of the great resources of our land. An eminent engineer once said that the water power of Scotland, if fully developed, is sufficient to run the whole of the machinery of Scotland.
It has been said that this Bill will give employment to a number of unemployed men, and like the hon. Member who moved the rejection of this Bill, I have the honour and privilege of representing a division which has suffered very acutely from unemployment during recent years. My point is that if you can find employment under private enterprise in this way you can find employment under public ownership and control. If this scheme can be inaugurated on the lines laid down in this Bill then it can be organised under Government ownership and control with equal speed. I feel that the time has come when some great departure has to be made with regard to the public control of our natural resources, and particularly in regard to a nation which is suffering to the extent we are doing at the present time.
We have to think out the whole of this problem of the employment and utilisation of our natural resources from a national point of view, and see upon what lines it can be most usefully and wisely developed. I am sure that we all feel very strongly the necessity for the discovery of some immediate and rapid method which will absorb the whole of the unemployment problem in our land, and this is one of the means by which that object might be accomplished. I ask the Government to tell us its policy with regard to these matters, and I feel sure that in Lanarkshire and other places the making available of these great national sources of wealth will be a step in the right direction towards developing them for the benefit of the community rather than for individual profit and gain.

Sir SAMUEL CHAPMAN: I am sure hon. Members on this side of the House, and myself in particular, would never doubt the courage of the two hon. Members who have supported the rejection of this Bill. I deeply regret, however, that they have found it necessary to move its rejection. In their opening sentences they at once saw the chief weakness of their case, because they apologised for opposing a Bill which will immediately give employment to a large number of people. This Bill, if it becomes law, will give employment to 1,500 or 2,000 people for a whole year, and that in itself, so far as I personally am concerned, if there were no other argument available, would decide my vote in favour of this Bill. This Measure has been amply and thoroughly discussed in all its phases through the usual channels until it has reached this House. It has been before a Select Committee of the House of Lords for five days, and I hold in my hand a copy of the evidence which has been taken. Every one of its Clauses has been carefully examined, as every Clause is examined, by a Select Committee, and in addition to that the opinion of the Minister of Transport has been sought and this is the advice the right hon. Gentleman has given:
The Minister sees no objection to the proposals contained in the Bill for generating electricity provided the engineering scheme as submitted to the Committee proves to be satisfactory.
It has been submitted to the Committee and proved satisfactory. It has been
passed unanimously by a Committee of the House of Lords and sent here for us consider. Certain objections were raised in the House of Lords, but the whole of them have been met with the exception of those raised by the hon. Member who has moved the rejection of this Measure. Up to yesterday there were still objections by the Lanarkshire County Council; but this afternoon a telegram has been received from the finance committee of the Lanarkshire County Council, which I will read:
Lanarkshire County Parliamentary Bills Committee to-day decided accept Clauses nineteen one Act and withdraw Petition their Parliamentary agents being instructed communicate Sherwood to-morrow.
There is no opposition from the county authorities in Lanarkshire, and this Measure is unanimously supported by the Committee of the House of Lords, and all that remains for us is to consider whether this is the time, without any notice being given at all to those who promote private Bills, that the whole system on which the government of this country has been based in the past with regard to private Bill procedure should all of a sudden come to an end, and the promoters of the Bill get for the first time in this House to-day notice that all their efforts and all the money they have spent, perhaps for a year past, amounting to many thousands of pounds, should be set at naught, and we are told we should begin to work now on a new system of nationalisation. I am not going to be drawn into the question of nationalisation. That is not the point. If we begin to discuss nationalisation, there will be no more business done in this House to-night, and I think that the Government themselves are anxious to get on with the business they have in hand.
I, for one, could talk for an hour on the details of this Bill, but I do not wish to talk. I only wish to appeal to the Government on just one point. Is this the time, without any definite notice having been given, to alter the basis of our system of government? Nationalisation may be right or may be wrong, but it is not the time, on a private Bill in a House like this, to try experiments of far-reaching consequence. If the Government want to do it, their Front Bench ought to be full of Cabinet Ministers, and we ought to have a full-dress Debate in this House. For the two hon. Members, with un-
doubted courage, to try to throw this Bill out on the ground that the time has now arrived for nationalisation, is to cut at the root of all foresight. How will any private Bill in the future ever be brought before this House? How will any company or any set of individuals think it worth while to promote Bills if, when they come to this House, they are thrown out, not on grounds of detail, not because the Clauses do not conform to various rules, but on a new system that everything shall be nationalised, and that now is the time to start nationalising, beginning with electricity? If this question of nationalisation is to come up, let it come up and let us debate it in a fair and big House of Commons, and not in a comparatively small House such as we have here to-night. It is cutting at the root of all security and all foresight with regard to private enterprise. It is taking away work that is wanted at this moment more badly than at any other time. Did not we hear the Prime Minister himself, in terms which we all admired, say most distinctly that everything connected with electricity should be promoted by this country? [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear! By the country."] Either by the country itself or by private enterprise. Is it to be thought that the Prime Minister meant that he was going to wait until a scheme of nationalisation was brought in? If so, how many General Elections are we to have before electricity is developed? [HON. MEMBERS: "Just one!"] That, of course, is a question of opinion. But, while we are waiting for that one election, men are walking about the streets of Lanarkshire idle who might be employed. I do appeal to the House that, now that the hon. Gentlemen have aired their opinions—

Mr. DICKSON: No, we are voting on them!

Sir S. CHAPMAN: As I have said, they have the courage to vote for what they think is right, but, now that they have aired their opinions, I do ask them, in all earnestness, to think, not of the great things which are, perhaps, in the dim and distant future, but of the immediate present, and of giving employment to 1,500 or 2,000 men who are wanting employment, and who will get employment if this Bill is given a Second Reading.

Mr. JOHN ROBERTSON (Lord of the Treasury): The hon. Member who has just spoken so eloquently in favour of this Measure has paid a tribute to the courage of the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment. I have followed very closely the arguments in favour of this Bill, and it has been pointed out that it would give work to a certain number of men—1,400 or 1,500. I would like to ask the hon. Member whether, even if he is prepared to give employment to a great deal more than 1,400 men, he is prepared to hand over the natural resources of the country, which are the property of the nation and the wealth of the nation, to a private monopoly?

Sir S. CHAPMAN: I presume that the hon. Gentleman is not putting that question with the intention that I should reply. I take it that he does not wish me to answer him in an interruption?

Mr. ROBERTSON: I always understood that in Debate speakers were quite within their rights in making reasonable deductions from statements made by opponents, and I hope I have not misrepresented the case. The argument was that here is an undertaking which would give employment to 1,400 or 1,500 men—

Sir S. CHAPMAN: The hon. Gentleman has said that more than once, but what I said was that it would give employment to 1,500 or 2,000 men.

Mr. ROBERTSON: I would advise my hon. Friend not to interrupt me so frequently, because I can assure him that it would not upset me one bit if he were to go on interrupting me all night. I will take his figure of 1,500 to 2,000. He says that, if this Bill is gone on with, it will give employment to 1,500 or 2,000 men in the County of Lanark. I do not dispute that for a single moment, but our reply to that is this: Are you prepared to hand over to a private monopoly the wealth of the nation, to be exploited for the advantage of that monopoly, merely because it is going to give employment to 1,500 or 2,000 men? It must not be forgotten that, if that work were undertaken and carried out by a municipality or county council, it would still give employment to the same number of men. We have been told that this Bill has been before the Parliamentary Bills Committee of the County
of Lanark, and also that it has been before the House of Lords. We do not deny that, but I think the whole crux of the hon. Member's argument is that, because the Bill has been before the Parliamentary Bills Committee of the County of Lanark and before the House of Lords, we should simply accept what comes from the House of Lords without question or examination. I am afraid that we are too jealous of the rights of the House of Commons to accept this without discussing the merits and demerits of the question.
Then we have been told that we are not to discuss the question of nationalisation. No; the time is too limited to discuss the question of nationalisation, but it is not too limited to accept a private monopoly without discussion. We are told that the nationalisation and socialisation of industries is such a big and wide question that we have not time to discuss it; but we are asked to hand over the natural resources, the national wealth, of part of the county of Lanark to a monopoly without discussion, because someone in some other place has said it, and it is desired to take away the rights of the House of Commons. I do not want to make debating points at all; I want really to face the position. We are not condescending on the merits or demerits of this Bill; we are pleading for delay; and I think that all the facts are in favour of delay in this matter.

Mr. ERSKINE: What about the question of the unemployed?

Mr. ROBERTSON: I hope I shall not be tempted to give a brief history of what has been done by hon. Gentlemen opposite for the unemployed since 1918. I do not desire, as I have said, to make debating points; I do not desire to say that the Bill is a good Bill or a bad one. What I do say is that we have good grounds for asking all parties in the House for delay in connection with this matter. The sentimental point of view has been mentioned, and I share very largely the sentimental view; but, on the other hand, this matter has been gone into in other quarters, and I am not competent to condescend on technical details with regard to other schemes. We plead for delay because there is no doubt that a legitimate offer has been made of certain rights of this property
to the County Council or to the nation if they care to exploit it. A scheme has been put forward by people competent to give an opinion where the cost of electricity in the upper ward of Lanarkshire will only be one-fourth of the charge which is being made at present in Lanark by the Clyde Valley Electrical Undertaking. No one in the House, not even the most enthusiastic and honest supporter of the Bill, would dare to deny that the Hydro Electric Company is the same concern as the Clyde Valley Electrical Undertaking. We are not seeking to discuss nationalisation or private enterprise. We are not concerned with the merits or demerits of the Bill. I do not want to say anything about capitalists exploiting this, that and the other. My point is that here are natural resources. For the first time it has been brought forward that these natural resources should be handed over to the County Council or the nation, to be exploited in the interest of the people in the upper ward of North Lanark. All we ask is that we ought to delay the matter for three months, until we have an opportunity of making inquiry as to the genuineness of the offer of the natural resources being handed over to the County Council or the nation. and we are not going to stand in the way if there is going to be a difficulty or if it is not going to be carried out. We might be in an entirely different position three months hence, but we are certainly in favour of delay. We will have the fullest possible inquiries made as to whether this is to be handed over to the nation or to the County Council to be worked in the interests of the people, and not in the interest of a private monopoly.

9.0 P.M.

Mr. E. D. SIMON: I have a good deal of sympathy with the point of view of the Mover and Seconder of the Resolution, not as regards the Bill, but on the matter of principle. I think all sections of the House agree that the question of electric power requires further investigation. It may be desirable to have a national scheme or it may be desirable that a portion, or the whole, of the natural resources should be nationalised. It is a very big question and we have not the information before us to debate it now. The question we are discussing is what action we shall take on the Second Reading of this Bill, and I think there is a good deal of misunderstanding as to what
exactly the Bill does. The last speaker said it set up a private monopoly to exploit the natural resources of the country. That is hardly a fair way of saying what the Bill does. We have the Clyde Power Company, which has a monopoly, in the usual way, of the sale of electricity in this area. This water power has never been exploited. Twenty thousand kilowats an hour have been pouring from the waterfalls for ever and no one has tried to come forward to convert it into power. Now the promoters of this Bill have come forward and offered to provide the money to put up the stations and produce the power and their scheme is to sell it to the Clyde Company, which already has a monopoly. It is simply a matter of selling the bulk supply to them and the report of the Ministry of Transport in the Lords Committee stated that whoever developed this water power must necessarily, under the special technical conditions, dispose of it to a company which can use it as an addition to their power, and the only available company is the Clyde Company. It is suggested that the price is not controlled. No one knows the price at which the electricity will be sold to the Clyde Company The mere fact that the Clyde Company are prepared to take their power in this way is sufficient proof that they can in that way get it more cheaply than by burning coal. From the point of view of financial resources I do not think there will be any answer to that point.
It may be suggested that if we agree to this Bill we are to set the precedent of handing these things over to private control, and therefore putting difficulties in the way of nationalisation if that should prove later to be a practical policy I think that is hardly the case. This is a perfectly isolated supply power. It has no connection with any other supply power. Whatever is done here is an individual unit which may be dealt with by itself, the power is reserved by agreement with the Board of Trade that the Government may take it over at a later date if they wish to do so—I think in 75 years. It is not setting a new precedent, because two water powers have been developed in Scotland in the last few years on the same lines. It seems to me what we have to consider is whether this scheme is a sound one in itself and whether, carrying it out on the lines pro-
posed, it is going, on the whole, to give advantages. The advantages have been set forth. I think one hon. Member said it is going to have the appearance of promising employment. I do not think that is a fair statement. It is undoubtedly going to employ 1,500 to 2,000 men—partly navvying work on the spot and partly engineers. After all, engineers need employment more than anyone else now. About £150,000 worth of engineering is to be placed at a time when engineering is depressed. That is a strong argument for going on now rather than for delay.
Secondly, this is a new kind of engineering for British engineers. These large water power plants have never been developed here. British engineers have carried them out in Brazil and India, but there are very few plants of that sort that engineers can show to buyers who can come here. It will be a show plant for British engineers and will be of real value to the industry from that point of view in the future. Lastly, as regards the immediate advantages, this water power will save something like 60,000 tons of coal a year in perpetuity. That is a real saving of our natural resources, and a thing that ought not to be put off. Of course, it will lower the price. The Clyde Company will be able to purchase more cheaply. If there was an alternative scheme put forward by which either a municipality or the nation was prepared to go on with this thing to-day it might be perfectly reasonable and proper to inquire which of these two schemes would be of the greatest advantage to the nation, but there is no such scheme. If you reject this Bill you are not going to get another scheme to do it in three months, and no one can tell when you will get it. I suggest that this is a perfectly genuine case. The promoters have already incurred very considerable expense. They have got the thing through the House of Lords and through the Committee. There is no opposition except from one gentleman who has been mentioned, and his opposition was not considered serious in the House of Lords. If we turn down a Bill of this sort, how are any enterprising people in future to get the courage to spend their money trying to develop schemes of this sort for the benefit of the nation? It would be a serious thing if the House rejected the
Bill, not because it is not a good Bill, but on the general principle of tying us down to go in for nationalisation. We have no evidence that nationalisation may not be the right thing for this, but we have no evidence that under nationalisation you will be able to carry out a scheme more efficiently or with more benefit to the users in the area. I am sure a great many people have opinions to that effect, and a great many to the opposite effect. I refuse to pledge myself as to which is right.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. Entwistle): I cannot permit any argument whether it would be more efficient or not.

Mr. SIMON: I would appeal to the House not to create the dangerous precedent of rejecting a Bill of this kind on account of the theory of nationalisation. The last speaker from the Government bench, the, hon. Member for the Bothwell Division (Mr. Robertson) pleaded for delay. This Bill is the result of an agreement between two Government Departments, the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Transport, and it will be exceedingly useful to know whether the last speaker was speaking for the Government, or as a private individual.

Mr. ROBERTSON: I was speaking as a Member for the County of Lanark against this Bill.

Mr. SIMON: Then I understand the hon. Member was not speaking for the Government. I am glad to know that.

Mr. T. JOHNSTON: The hon. Member for Withington (Mr. Simon) made the point that the price at which this company is going to sell electricity to the Clyde Company must be alright, because the Clyde Valley Company have already made up their minds that this must be a cheaper way than any other means. The hon. Member must have omitted to study Clause 19, where the most elaborate arrangements are made whereby these two sets of companies, who are the same people, are going to swop their capital. It is going to be the finest system of interlocking capital imaginable, so that it does not matter which sells dearly or which buys cheaply, the profit will go to the same pocket.

Mr. SIMON: My point is that it would be produced more cheaply than by another method.

Mr. JOHNSTON: It may be produced more cheaply, but if the profits go into the same pockets, where is the advantage to the public?

Mr. ERSKINE: These companies do not work for charity.

Mr. JOHNSTON: For the first time since I came into this House, I find myself in most hearty agreement with the hon. Member opposite.

Mr. ERSKINE: I am in most hearty agreement with you. I am on the Clyde myself.

Mr. JOHNSTON: Therefore, you speak with great authority. I have never known where an exploiting gang like this worked for charity, so that the hon. Member is quite correct.

Mr. FERGUSON: You do not work for charity. You never did anything for charity in your life.

Mr. JOHNSTON: The hon. Member thinks this is the Battle of the Boyne.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I hope hon. Members will not keep up this running fire of interruptions.

Mr. JOHNSTON: Reference has been made to the proprietor who still persists in his opposition to this Bill. I understood the hon. Member for Withington to say that the opposition was not regarded as serious in the House of Lords. The proprietor said that on the rate at present charged in the district the profit would result in such an amount as would be oppressive to the inhabitants. He goes on to say that it is his considered opinion that it is of the highest importance, in the interest of the general public and, in the long run, of the proprietors of what may be called natural power, that the acquiring of monopolies should be prevented by every available means. He also went on to say that he was so convinced of this that rather than see a monopoly of the kind being acquired in the case of the Falls of Clyde, he is prepared to make over his rights in these Falls to the public, on the simple condition that they shall erect and operate electrical plant on the most up-to-date and modern lines, and for public purposes.
That is a public-spirited offer, and it ought not to be derided and referred to as an objection of no consequence. It has been said that this opposition was not taken seriously in another place. I imagine that this House will take, or that it ought to take, an offer of that kind seriously. We have been told of the extraordinary number of men, engineers particularly, who will be set to work at once under this scheme. One hon. Member said that the need was urgent in order that the unemployed should be set to work. What are the facts? They are going to start when they have got £10,000. How long will they with that amount of money be able to employ 15,000, 1,500, 1,000, or even 500 men? [Interruption.] That is in the Bill. They are going to start when they have raised £10,000. What are they going to do with the £10,000? [An HON. MEMBER: "Pay wages."] They are going to buy land first. That amount of capital is quite insufficient for the purpose of settling any large numbers of engineers or other workers in employment. Some of us have had personal experience of the way these electrical trusts do not operate, and we can quite well believe that the provisions in this Bill by which they ask that they shall be given five years in which to go on with their scheme is merely a proposal to prevent the Government, the county council, or any public authority from operating. They want to get and preserve a monopoly while there is time.

Mr. SIMON: What is your evidence?

Mr. JOHNSTON: I live in a town where the Clyde Valley Electrical Company acquired powers to provide electricity. They acquired those powers, I think in 1901, but there is not a single cable laid in that area yet, and no prospect of it.

Mr. SIMON: That has nothing to do with this scheme.

Mr. JOHNSTON: What they do in one district is a fair indication of what they may do in another district. One hon. Member said that if we oppose this Bill we are cutting at the root of all foresight I can see some foresight in this Bill. The nation cannot nationalise this until the year 1998. That is some foresight. Three-quarters of a century must elapse.
Who fears to speak of Ninety-eight Who blushes at the name?
The Minister of Transport gives his blessing to this. [HON. MEMBERS: "Shame!"] The hon. Member who spoke last said that there was no evidence that publicly-owned electricity was cheaper than privately-owned electricity. The evidence will be supplied in figures given by the Board of Trade. The evidence was given before the Coal Commission. It was not disputed by the electrical engineers who sat representing the masters on the Coal Commission. That evidence shows, taking an average, that the publicly-owned unit was very much cheaper than the privately-owned unit. Here are some figures taken from an estimate made by the "Electrical Times" on an average given by the Board of Trade. There are six stations given. The average price per public unit, per municipal station, is 2½16d., and the average price per company station is 3½07d., showing an advantage of nearly a penny in favour of the publicly-owned electricity.
I see in this Bill provisions like No. 52 and No. 53 for the protection of the London, Midland, and Scottish Railway Company and of other people, but I do not see one clause for the protection of the poor old Scottish public. What is happening here is that a company are seeking to acquire a natural monopoly which they intend to hold for exploitation purposes of a great scheme of public power which is necessary for the cheap running of works. They intend to hold that, if possible, until 1998. My view is that Labour Members and Scottish representatives will be fools if they do not do everything in their power to prevent that company securing this privilege and monopoly, instead of that it shall go to the Lanarkshire County Council or the Government or to some form of public control under which it would be used for the common good.

Mr. LINFIELD: In the main I am always in favour of public bodies acquiring such undertakings as these, but I think that this House, when the hon. Member for Bothwell (Mr. J. Robertson) has spoken from his point of view with regard to this scheme, ought to know what the Government point of view is. The Government should give the House some guidance in a matter of this kind. I do not think that this question ought to be approached from the point of view of finding work. That is one of the weakest
arguments that could possibly be advanced for promoting a Bill. What I am concerned about is this. What about the inhabitants? I have not heard a word about the inhabitants, and as to what is the desire of the people who live in the locality which is served by this undertaking. I understand that it is a Bill dealing with light and power, but I have heard no reference to this matter, and in the main, while I am of opinion the public authority should always be favoured and have the first opportunity to acquire undertakings of this kind, there is another point of view, that of the inhabitants.
I do not think that we ought to hold up any undertaking if the public authorities are not showing any disposition to work the resources that are at their hands. If I may be allowed, I want to suggest that we should approach this matter not altogether from the partisan aspect, and not altogether from the question of nationalisation. I think that the main consideration ought always to be the people themselves who live in the locality. Have the local authorities made any attempt whatever to carry out the work of electricity in the district? I cannot get any information that they have, and if the local authorities have shown no disposition to work the resources at their hand I do not see what grounds my hon. Friends above the Gangway can have for objecting to a company taking the matter in hand. That is one point of view.
The next is—and I do not suppose that my hon. Friends opposite will agree with me in this—that if we allow a private company to take this matter in hand it will have to be done with very careful safeguards, and that I think is the duty of this House. All the points that have been suggested by my hon. Friends above the Gangway to my mind are Committee points. I am of opinion that we ought to give the Bill a Second Reading, and examine very closely all these points in Committee. The first thing which we should have to consider would be the right of the local authorities to purchase. I have had a little experience of these companies, and it has not been favourable. I make that admission. I am in favour of very carefully safeguarding the rights of the public whenever a question of this
kind comes before this House, but I do say that we have no right to adopt a dog-in-the-manger policy, and if the local authorities are not prepared to do the work they should not prevent a private company from carrying it out. Therefore I wish the House to give a Second Reading to this Measure, and then I wish to ask the House to watch very carefully several points.
The first is the right of the local authorities, should they so desire, to take over these works at a fair valuation, not to be determined by the Company but to be determined in a manner provided in the Bill itself. That is, should the local authorities desire—and in my opinion it is always desirable that the authorities should have these powers in their own hands—we ought then to allow them to take over the undertakings. The next point is that there should be inserted in the Bill a fixed time within which the work must be proceeded with, and it should be a comparatively short time. I have had experience of tramway powers being granted and held up and, as my hon. Friend has suggested, that might be the case with regard to this Bill. I have had experience of electric lighting concessions being granted to private companies and the work being held up, but I do suggest that this House ought not to hold up the work and ought not to prevent private companies carrying out the work if the public authorities fail to do their duty. Therefore, I suggest that we give the Bill a Second Reading, and in Committee very carefully safeguard the rights of public authorities and the inhabitants as to the time in which the work should proceed.

Mr. WADDINGTON: I think a question of principle is involved. The usual procedure has been followed in connection with the promotion of this Bill. Is it wise, in connection with a Bill which has been considered by the House of Lords and has passed a Committee of that House, that in this Chamber we should take up the attitude that we are going to refuse to allow the Bill to be sent to a Committee of the House? The Private Bill Committee will have counsel before them, and every opportunity given to state the pros and cons of the Measure. If the Bill comes back to this House from Committee and there is a suggestion made that it has not been fairly con-
sidered by the Committee, then it will be for this House to say that, on certain considerations, it will reject the Measure. I hope, therefore, we shall have no Division on this matter. If we do go to a Division, it will be to carry out the usual procedure of this House. The Mover of the Amendment to reject the Measure tried to show to the House that this was going to defeat the amenities of the district.

Mr. DICKSON: No, no!

Mr. WADDINGTON: The suggestion of the hon. Member was that work under this Bill would also disfigure the landscape. He pleaded for the beauties of the country and that they should be protected from this disfigurement. If he refers to Clause 37, he will see it is specially provided that the landscape shall be preserved, that the amenities shall be maintained and that a Committee shall be appointed by the Secretary for Scotland. I agree with one point which has been raised in objection to this Measure. I think it is a very dangerous thing to give such a long period. I consider that this is a point to which the strongest objection can be taken in the Committee stage; to give so many years and leave people absolutely debarred from getting possession of what may be a valuable property and may be necessary for development. I think that the long period of 75 years should be very carefully considered in the Committee stage. We know that these electricity companies and these great power companies have done real, substantial work. We have the Clyde Valley. You take the Newcastle Company; you take the Lancashire Power Company. They have given us cheaper electricity than any public authority. The hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. T. Johnston) talked of averages of 2½16 or 3½16 or some such figures, making a difference of a penny by the power company. You do not have such a charge as 2d. per unit for the power supply. The general charge varies from 5 of a penny to 75 of a penny per unit. Therefore, it is ridiculous to suggest that the power companies are charging 3½16d. per unit. I hope this Bill will be given a Second Reading, because the principle which is involved in connection with local legislation should be considered in Committee.

The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Mr. Gosling): The Bill has been approved by the Electricity Commissioners, who submitted to me their Report, which I endorsed and which was passed on to the House. That procedure is generally adopted in Bills of this kind. I was asked what the view of the Government was. I do not think I can say more than this: that the Prime Minister's promise to the House is being carried out. It is being looked into carefully, and I am not in a position at this moment to make a promise. I wish I could make one, but we have not made sufficient progress to decide the point. I want to say to my hon. Friends behind me that the Government are very concerned that everything that is possible should be done to develop electricity in this country, and they are looking into the matter and feel that under all the circumstances it is best to leave the judgment of this Bill to the free vote of the House.

Mr. HARDIE: I want to correct some statements which come from people who are not in contact with the subject. The last speaker on the Front Bench implied that something rested with the Electricity Commissioners. Nothing rests with the Commissioners. All they do is to give a judgment on cases brought before them. The hon. Member who spoke before the Minister of Transport from the Front Bench was dilating upon the great danger of preventing any development in these districts. Has he not, from his own experience of local administration, got knowledge of the fact that, because the Clyde Valley Company holds the power in that valley, local authorities cannot act. It was the Liberal party who in 1896 gave their first Bill to the Clyde Valley Electric Company and by giving that power to it, although the Glasgow Corporation are running electric trams through the streets of Rutherglen and could supply the municipal power and light almost 25 per cent. cheaper than the Clyde Valley Company, the Liberal Government Bill prevents the citizens of Rutherglen getting the advantage of municipal charge for power and they have to pay the charge of private enterprise, I am surprised that any hon. Members taking part in the Debate should be so far from knowing what actually exists to-day. Then we have had a great cry about work for the unemployed. That comes very
well from hon. Members opposite when it suits their own little game, and after all this is a game. If anyone cares to study a Bill like this and its relation to unemployment, they will soon realise that here you propose to set up 20,000 horse-power plant, and if that horse-power were not taken from water you would be using coal to produce it. Can any hon. Member opposite tell me how many tons of coal would be required to produce that horse-power? Hon. Members do not think these things over because they cannot. In this case I venture to suggest unemployment is being used just in the same way as a juggler might use a ball of different colours in front of a group of children. There may be some in this House who may be as innocent as children, but most of us from the Clyde have passed that stage.
Now I come to the general question. I am surprised that hon. Members below the Gangway on this side of the House should have taken up the attitude they have done in view of the position of the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), who, with hair flowing and hands flying, spoke so much against private enterprise at the end of the War and suggested that the only hope of this great nation was that it should control and own all these powers. Yet his followers are in favour of placing in the hands of a few a monopoly of these resources to the detriment of the whole community! I am surprised at them. One hon. Member has pointed out that the Lords Committee discussed this Bill for five days. May I recall to the memory of hon. Members the fact that when the Mines Subsidence Bill came from the House of Lords after having been under consideration for five weeks, it proved to be a mass of stupidity. Therefore, when we are asked to agree that the stamp of the House of Lords Committee is of any value it would be as well first to get the Lords to do something worthy of recommendation. I come next to a part of the Bill which has, I believe, not been dealt with. That is the changing of water sources which are to be authorised. It is proposed to give power to private companies at any time to redirect certain water supplies. I venture to suggest you cannot as a public community allow any handful of individuals for the sake of the ideals
they possess to disturb any stream. Yet it is sought to induce this House to give power to a handful of men to do that. There is power proposed in Clause 77 for the supply of plant and material, and the price is to be charged therefore. What it really means is that the Clyde Valley Company, having in view coming developments, are seeking increased powers by this Bill, they are seeking to absorb the powers of other companies, and they propose to sell to themselves the right of extension in the areas of those other companies and not to give those companies such rights. That is a form of swindling which, I venture to suggest, should be stopped. I think I have properly interpreted the meaning of that particular Clause.
Then there is a Clause giving power for the correction of the plans deposited. I have had some experience of plans, and I say that to give any private company power to correct them is to make them a gift to do what they like. I hope hon. Members will realise that. It is an altogether unlimited power to give to a handful of men who are seeking by means of the Act an extension of their powers for 99 years. I am sorry that the hon. Member for St. George's (Mr. Erskine) is not in his place. He claims he is a Clyde man, but the interest he is working for is not a Clyde interest. He reminds me of a gentleman in the undertaking business in Glasgow whose name is Dobbie. Mr. Dobbie whatever work he gets he does himself, and he is really a Clyde worker although he is only putting away the chaps who were making interest for the hon. Member for St. George's.
I want to come back to our own Front Bench. Here you have London as the horrible example and as a guiding post of what this House should do to-night. May I be allowed to take one illustration? Here you have in London a City which could be supplied with the cheapest power in the world if it were only properly organised, because of the number of users so close together, whereas, as a matter of fact, you have twenty-five companies engaged in the supply of that power. It has all been arranged. You have all been playing on the ignorance of the public in these technical matters. The Front Bench and the Government seem to have a perfect terror of tech-
nical matters, and because of that terror the people behind them can do what they like with them. They are afraid of any technical responsibility.
You are to have a discussion this week on the Electricity Bill. There is no sign of a solution coming from a strong hand, no sign of anyone saying that the people of London are first, that national mains are to be put down in London, and that corporations and private enterprises have to pump juice into those mains at a reasonable price. If we want Scotland to avoid the trouble which has occurred in London, we must say, "No." The Government should take their courage in their hands and say, "We are going to lay national mains from one end of Scotland to the other." Trade follows the electric main more than it follows the British Flag. If we have courage on the Front Bench, and if we get our national main in London and in Scotland, there will be no difficulties with any company, whether private or public. In that way we shall control not only the makers' supply and quality and price, but, we shall be able to say to the public,

"We can now guarantee you current at a certain rate. "Why should these people, have the rights in this water? The water belongs to the whole community. Members of the House are always glibly talking about electricity as the great power of the future, without knowing anything about it. They are the real danger, because they are always shouting on the subject without having the necessary knowledge. If they had even sincere feeling in the matter, they would not allow a handful of men to come along in search of a further monopoly. I hope that the House will reject this Bill in the interests of humanity.

Mr. GOSLING: rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

Question put accordingly, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes, 221; Noes, 112.

Division No. 150.]
AYES.
[9.53 p.m.


Ackroyd, T. R.
Conway, Sir W. Martin
Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)


Ainsworth, Captain Charles
Cope, Major William
Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Shetland)


Alexander, Brig.-Gen. Sir W. (Glas.C.)
Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry


Allen, R. Wilberforce (Leicester, S.)
Craig, Captain C. C. (Antrim, South)
Harney, E. A.


Apsley, Lord
Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry
Hartington, Marquess of


Aske, Sir Robert William
Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend)
Harvey, C.M.B. (Aberd'n & Kincardne)


Astor, Maj. Hn. John J. (Kent, Dover)
Cunliffe, Joseph Herbert
Harvey, T. E. (Dewsbury)


Atholl, Duchess of
Curzon, Captain Viscount
Henn, Sir Sydney H.


Austin, Sir Herbert
Darbishire, C. W.
Hennessy, Major J. R. G.


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Davies, David (Montgomery)
Herbert, Capt. Sidney (Scarborough)


Barclay, R. Noton
Davies, Ellis (Denbigh, Denbigh)
Hillary, A. E.


Barnston, Major Sir Harry
Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)
Hindle, F.


Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)
Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)
Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G.


Berry, Sir George
Dickle, Captain J. P.
Hobhouse, A. L.


Betterton, Henry B.
Dixey, A. C.
Hogbin, Henry Cairns


Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Dixon, Herbert
Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (St. Marylebone)


Bird, Sir R. B. (Wolverhampton, W.)
Dodds, S. R.
Hohler, Sir Gerald Fitzroy


Blades, Sir George Rowland
Duckworth, John
Hood, Sir Joseph


Bonwick, A.
Eden, Captain Anthony
Hope, Rt. Hon. J. F. (Sheffield, C.)


Bourne, Robert Croft
Edmondson, Major A. J.
Hore-Belisha, Major Leslie


Bowater, Sir T. Vansittart
Edwards, John H. (Accrington)
Howard, Hn. D. (Cumberland, Northrn.)


Bowyer, Captain G. E. W
Elveden, Viscount
Howard-Bury, Lieut.-Col. C. K.


Bramsdon, Sir Thomas
England, Colonel A.
Home-Williams, Sir W. Ellis


Brass, Captain W.
Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith
James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert


Brassey, Sir Leonard
Eyres-Monsell, Com. Rt. Hon, B. M.
Jenkins, W. A. (Brecon and Radnor)


Briant, Frank
Falconer, J.
Jephcott, A. R.


Briscoe, Captain Richard George
Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray
Johnstone, Harcourt (Willesden, East)


Brunner, Sir J.
Ferguson, H.
Jones, C. Sydney (Liverpool, W. Derby)


Buckle, J.
Franklin, L. B.
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)


Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James
Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.
Jowitt, W. A. (The Hartlepools)


Bullock, Captain M.
Galbraith, J. F. W.
Kay, Sir R. Newbald


Burman, J. B.
Gaunt, Rear-Admiral Sir Guy R
Kedward, R. M.


Burnie, Major J. (Bootle)
George, Major G. L. (Pembroke)
Kenyon, Barnet


Butler, Sir Geoffrey
Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham
King, Captain Henry Douglas


Caine, Gordon Hall
Gilmour, Colonel Rt. Hon. Sir John
Lambert, Rt. Hon. George


Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth.S.)
Graham, W. (Edinburgh, Central)
Laverack, F. J.


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)
Greene, W. P. Crawford
Linfield, F. C.


Chapple, Dr. William A.
Grigg, Lieut.-Col. Sir Edward W. M.
Livingstone, A. M.


Clayton, G. C.
Gwynne, Rupert S.
Lloyd-Greame, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip


Cobb, Sir Cyril
Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)


Collins, Patrick (Walsall)
Hall, Lieut.-Col, Sir F. (Dulwich)
Loverseed, J. F.


Lumley, L. R.
Pielou, D. P.
Sutherland, Rt. Hon. Sir William


McCrae, Sir George
Pilkington, R. R.
Tattersall, J. L.


MacDonald, R.
Pringle, W. M. R.
Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)


McLean, Major A.
Raffety, F. W.
Thomson, Sir W. Mitchell-(Croydon, S.)


Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm
Raine, W
Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)


Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.
Rankin, James S.
Thornton, Maxwell R.


Maden, H.
Rawson, Alfred Cooper
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of


Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel.
Rea, W. Russell
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement


Makins, Brigadier-General E.
Rees, Sir Beddoe
Turton, Edmund Russborough


Mansel, Sir Courtenay
Rees, Capt. J. T. (Devon, Barnstaple)
Vaughan-Morgan, Col, K. P.


Martin, F. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, E.)
Remer, J. R.
Vivian, H.


Mason, Lieut.-Col. Glyn K.
Remnant, Sir James
Waddington, R.


Meller, R. J.
Richardson, Lt.-Col. Sir P. (Chertsey)
Ward, Lt.-Col. A. L. (Kingston-on-Hall)


Meyler, Lieut.-Colonel H. M.
Robinson, S. W. (Essex, Chelmsford)
Watson, Sir F. (Pudsey and Otley)


Millar, J. D.
Robinson, Sir T. (Lancs., Stretford)
Webb, Rt. Hon, Sidney


Mitchell, R.M. (Perth & Kinross, Perth)
Ropner, Major L.
Wells, S. R.


Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)
Roundell, Colonel R. F.
Wheler, Lieut.-Col. Granville C. H.


Mond, H.
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)
Williams, A. (York, W. R., Sowerby)


Morris, R. H.
Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)
Williams, Col. P. (Middlesbrough, E.)


Moulton, Major Fletcher
Sandeman, A. Stewart
Williams, Maj. A. S. (Kent, Sevenoaks)


Muir, Ramsay (Rochdale)
Savery, S. S.
Wilson, Sir C. H. (Leeds, Central)


Murrell, Frank
Shepperson, E. W.
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Nall, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Joseph
Simms, Dr. John M. (Co. Down)
Wise, Sir Fredric


Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Simpson, J. Hope
Wolmer, Viscount


Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge)
Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Univ., Belfst)
Wood, Major Rt. Hon. Edward F. L.


Oman, Sir Charles William C.
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)
Wood, Sir H. K. (Woolwich, West)


Owen, Major G.
Spencer, H. H. (Bradford, South)
Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)


Pattinson, S. (Horncastle)
Spender-Clay, Lieut.-Colonel H. H.
Woodwark, Lieut.-Colonel G. G.


Pease, William Edwin
Spero, Dr. G. E.
Wragg, Herbert


Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)
Stanley, Lord
Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T.


Perkins, Colonel E. K.
Starmer, Sir Charles



Perring, William George
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Philipson, Mabel
Sucter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser
Mr. E. D. Simon and Sir Samuel


Phillipps, Vivian
Sutcliffe, T.
Chapman.


NOES.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. William
Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon
Perry, S. F.


Alden, Percy
Hastings, Somerville (Reading)
Ponsonby, Arthur


Alstead, R.
Haycock, A. W.
Potts, John S.


Attlee, Major Clement R.
Hayday, Arthur
Purcell, A. A.


Ayles, W. H.
Henderson, A. (Cardiff, South)
Raynes, W. R.


Baker, Walter
Henderson, T. (Glasgow)
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)


Banton, G.
Hoffman, P. C.
Ritson, J.


Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)
Hudson, J. H.
Robertson, J. (Lanark, Bothwell)


Barnes, A.
Isaacs, G. A.
Romerll, H. G.


Batey, Joseph
Jackson, R. F. (Ipswich)
Rose, Frank H.


Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)
Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Scrymgeour, E.


Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.
Jewson, Dorothea
Scurr, John


Bromfield, William
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Sexton, James


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Johnston, Thomas (Stirling)
Sherwood, George Henry


Buchanan, G.
Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)
Spence, R.


Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel
Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M.
Stamford, T. W.


Cape, Thomas
Kirkwood, D.
Stephen, Campbell


Charieton, H. C.
Lansbury, George
Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)


Church, Major A. G.
Law, A.
Thomson, Trevelyan (Middlesbro. W.)


Clarke, A.
Lawson, John James
Tillett, Benjamin


Climie, R.
Leach, W.
Tout, W. J.


Cluse, W. S.
Lunn, William
Turner, Ben


Compton, Joseph
Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)
Wallhead, Richard C.


Cove, W. G.
March, S.
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)


Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)
Marley, James
Whiteley, W.


Dunnico, H.
Martin, W. H. (Dumbarton)
Wignall, James


Edwards, G. (Norfolk, Southern)
Maxton, James
Williams, David (Swansea, E.)


Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton)
Montague, Frederick
Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)


Gardner, J. P. (Hammersmith, North)
Morrison, Herbert (Hackney, South)
Williams, Lt.-Col. T.S.B. (Kenningtn.)


Gibbins, Joseph
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)
Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)


Gillett, George M.
Mosley, Oswald
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)


Gould, Frederick (Somerset, Frome)
Murray, Robert
Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)


Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)
Nixon, H.
Windsor, Walter


Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
O'Grady, Captain James
Wright, W.


Groves, T.
Oliver, George Harold
Young, Andrew (Glasgow, Partick)


Grundy, T. W.
Oliver, P. M. (Manchester, Blackley)



Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Paling, W.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Harbord, Arthur
Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)
Mr. Hardie and Mr. Dickson.


Harris, John (Hackney, North)




Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read a Second time, and committed.

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE (No. 2) BILL.

Postponed Proceeding resumed on Consideration of Bill as amended (in the Standing Committee).

CLAUSE 4.ߞ(Amendments as to disqualification for receipt of unemployment benefit.)

Mr. SPEAKER: The Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Govan (Mr. N. Maclean), to leave out Sub-section (1) and to insert a new Sub-section, is printed in the wrong place on the Paper.

Mr. H. H. SPENCER: I beg to move, in page 5, line 12, to leave out Subsection (1).
I understand the Minister is anxious to get this Bill to-night and we on this side of the House and, I am sure, my hon. Friends on the other side, do not wish to prevent him doing se. So far as we are concerned, the Minister can have his Bill in ten minutes if he consents to what we impressed upon him in Committee. In a time when unemployment insurance is in the melting pot, when the fund is insolvent by millions, and when we are inflicting a heavy burden of contributions on the working classes and on the industry of this country to pull the fund round, we ask the Minister not to bring in any controversial changes into the administration of unemployment insurance. A very controversial change is proposed in Clause 4. May I ask the House to bear with me while I say something about the principle of unemployment insurance. The Unemployment Insurance Measure which was originally passed, possibly more than any other Measure passed within recent years except Old Age Pensions, had the good will of all sections of the community particularly in the terrible times through which we have passed. It was intended by its promoters and has been looked upon by its beneficiaries as a Measure meant to tide industry over the bad times which seem to be inevitable in modern civilisation, but it was not a Measure which was ever intended to subsidise trade disputes.
Even in 1911, when the beginnings of unemployment insurance were proposed, the demand was made that men and women should come on to the fund even
if they were thrown out of work as the result of a trade dispute, and the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon) then put the case far better than I can put it. He put it in its classic form, which I should like to read to the House, but, unfortunately, I lent the right hon. and learned Gentleman his own speech, and I have not got it back from him. That speech puts the whole point in a nutshell, and it was to the effect that the Bill had been introduced not to take sides between capital and labour, but purely to provide for inevitable happenings in industry. I am not reading it, because I do not want to trespass on the good nature of the Minister, who has asked me not to delay the Bill. We all have a good deal of pity for the gentleman who is known as the innocent victim of a trade dispute, and I hope my hon. Friends on the Labour benches will not make the very sad mistake that the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Hudson) made in Committee, of characterising my views as purely class views. They are not. I have never yet pretended to represent any class, and I would not like to be in this House if I did. I do my best to represent the whole of the people who sent me here, and I am entitled to put this view, the long view, not as to what is going to relieve for the moment the innocent victim of a strike or trade dispute, but as to what is going to do good in the long run for the country as a whole.
I like to find. if I can, points of agreement with my political opponents, and I would make this point of agreement with all my opponents, that the most important thing before the country to-day is to get the greatest amount of wealth to divide among all of us. That is an axiom upon which I think we can all agree, but we are not likely to get that amount of wealth unless we have uninterrupted production, with the best will that we can get between all classes of producers. If I thought that this very controversial alteration in the Unemployment Act was going to give us greater production with goodwill on both sides, I would vote for it to-morrow, but I think that it will have the very opposite effect. I am afraid that the time is coming now when a great many work-people will feel that this Bill is a very great hardship, or even an injustice.
There has been nothing better in our industrial life than the way in which workpeople and employers have cheerfully shouldered the heavy burden of the very heavy contributions to the Unemployment Insurance Act, but neither those workpeople nor those employers are going to shoulder it cheerfully if they feel that it is an unjust burden. The Minister has shown unwonted heroism, for a gentleman calling himself a Socialist, by resisting demands on the public purse.

Mr. MACLEAN: On the public purse? It is a contributory fund.

Mr. SPENCER: A fund of which one-third is contributed by the public.

Mr. MACLEAN: Not one-third. Read your contributions again.

Mr. SPENCER: I do not care whether it is a third, a fourth, or a sixth. I believe that I am the first Member to point out in this Debate that the public does pay something, and I want to congratulate the Minister upon his heroism in resisting demands on the public purse and upon the funds of the contributors. He said in Committee, with regard to Clause 8, the contracting-out. Clause:
Obviously, no actuary can pretend to give you any idea at all. How does he know who is going to apply to contract out if the Clause in the Bill be not passed?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee D, 19th June, 1924; col. 107.]
He added a few minutes later:
The plain fact of this matter is that the whole financial structure of the Bill goes to the winds if this Clause is with-drawn "—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee D, 19th June, 1924; col. 116.]

Mr. SPEAKER: We are now dealing with Clause 4, not Clause 8.

Mr. SPENCER: The Minister told us the whole finance of the Bill went to the winds if the contracting-out Clause was withdrawn, but how much more important is Clause 4 in this respect! The Government actuary who was called upon to report on Clause 4 told us that the effect that the Clause might have on the Act was incalculable, and he refused to give us any estimate as to what it would cost the country. I want, therefore, to appeal to the Minister to withdraw what, after all, is very controversial and entirely new. The old Clause 4 provided very
fairly for the innocent victim of trade disputes. The only man who did not go on unemployment benefit, if he were out of work owing to a trade dispute, was a man who was actually working for the same firm in the same premises as those in which a dispute took place. The new Clause 4 puts upon the Fund the responsibility for unemployment of the whole of the workpeople who are thrown out of work owing to a strike, even if that strike be only among the key men in any particular factory or industry. What is that going to do for increased production, what is that going to do for goodwill among all sections of the producers of this country, and what is it going to do towards making a sense of injustice?
I know that in modern times an ordinary capitalist has no rights, but I would suggest that when you are taking from the employer a contribution of 10d. a week, and a similar contribution from the men, and a very heavy burden from the taxpayer, it is not in the interests of industrial peace or, in the long run, of the country, and, above all, it is not common justice, to say that this Unemployment Fund that was intended to tide over industrial ups and downs shall be used straight away to finance one side in an industrial dispute. That is the clear, straightforward issue, and I want to put it before this House and the country. I think the Minister has mistaken his function as Minister of Labour on this occasion. The overwhelming feeling of the Committee was that this should be a temporary Bill until such time as the Fund was solvent. We want to get it solvent as quickly as possible, so as then drastically to cut down the contributions which are pressing so heavily on industry, and I say that the Minister would have been better advised, and would have saved all this controversy, if he had been content simply to leave that Clause as it stood before and to wait until he got some sort of non-party committee patiently to inquire into the working of this Act during the next two years while the Fund is becoming solvent. I appeal even now to the Minister to give us this concession, simply to leave us where we are. I do not know that there have been great injustices done, and I cannot help thinking that this particularly controversial Clause is a gesture from the Minister to the extreme ends of his Socialist supporters. It is a
very easy thing for the Minister simply to say to us, "For the sake of peace, for the sake of industrial peace, for the sake of peace in this House, and for the sake of cutting time short on this Bill, I am prepared to leave the Unemployment Insurance Bill where it stands to-day so fax as this controversial Clause 4 is concerned."

Sir K. WOOD: I beg to second the Amendment, and, in doing so, I may say I at once approach the matter with a view, if I can, to preserve this particular fund for its original purposes. I neither want an employers' organisation nor a trade union to use in any way the fund for their own purposes in the course of an industrial dispute. I believe that this particular fund, contributed as it is by the State, the employers and the workmen, should be used fairly and solely for the purpose of helping people who are genuinely out of work, and I need not remind the House that this question has proved a very difficult one for a very considerable period. I believe the right hon. Member for North West Camberwell (Dr. Macnamara), during the time he was Minister of Labour, endeavoured to come to a conclusion on this particular matter, and I believe on one occasion he suggested that if the Lord Privy Seal and Sir Allan Smith, representing both sides in matters of this kind, could get together, and come to a conclusion, he would be very glad to give it his sympathetic consideration.

Dr. MACNAMARA: And I would adopt it.

Sir K. WOOD: And I think he said he would adopt it. Throughout the whole of the time this matter has been confronting the House and the country the difficulty has proved insurmountable. The hon. Gentleman who moved this Amendment referred to the statement made on an earlier occasion by the right hon. and learned Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon). I do not think any Member of the House will say that the position of those of us who oppose this Clause can be put in better words than were put on that occasion, on the 30th November, 1911, by the right hon. Gentleman. He said—and I think he perfectly stated the question—
In the first place, we must secure that this fund shall be used to relieve people who are out of employment owing to the in-
evitable fluctuations of trade, as distinguished from relieving people who are out of employment in connection with some industrial dispute. We must have a test which can be quickly and certainly applied.
The right hon. Gentleman went on to show how difficult such a test other than that applied at that time would be. He said:
May I point out to the House two reasons why the test in the Bill is likely to be the right teat? First of all, you do not want a test which is capable of being manipulated either by the trade union leaders on the one hand, or by the secretary of the Employers' Federation on the other. If you say that everybody who is not directly concerned in the strike is to have unemployment benefit, then it is obviously to the interests of the secretary of the trade union to pick and choose a few among the people in the works to strike, so that it would have the result of bringing the works to a standstill. He could select a particular kind of labour which would bring to a stop the motive power of the factory, and he might thereby, if he manages the affair adroitly, throw upon the unemployment fund a body of workmen who loudly assert they are not directly concerned in the strike, but who would certainly have joined the strike if it had not been made to their advantage not to do so. Secondly, the way in which an employer could prevent any class of workers from getting unemployment benefit, and the way to bring extra pressure to bear, would be by serving a lock-out notice on the lot, and so deprive them of benefit which they might otherwise get. I submit to the House"—
the right hon. Gentleman went on to say—
that it is not desirable that we should insert into this Bill words which would put it in the power of one side or the other so to manipulate their notices in trade disputes that a larger number or a smaller number of people might come out. If you do, you are really taking upon yourself the duties which the trade unions themselves ought to discharge."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 30th November, 1911; cols. 803-4-5, Vol. 32.]
These words, I venture to say, are very applicable to-night. I think they very correctly sum up the attitude of a large number of us who have no wish to have this Unemployment Fund subject to trade disputes or strike controversies. The only other matter I want to urge upon the House is this: Naturally, the Members of the House, in considering a matter of this kind, will say what is the cost going to be, because obviously we must have regard to the interests of the people who contribute to this Fund. I believe that the opinion of the Government actuary has been obtained, and he is not able, quite naturally, I think, to make any
statement as to what cost may be involved to the contributors to this Fund. The difficulty, obviously, is of such a character that no competent actuary, regardful of his reputation, could give a figure, but it is certainly a considerable one. Sir Alfred Watson has said that it is "insusceptible of calculation." I venture, therefore, to say that, in dealing with this fund to-night, we must have regard, if we insert a Clause of this character, to what its effect is going to be upon a fund which has been contributed by employers and workmen alike.
This fund is certainly in a very peculiar position. We know its financial position to-day. But even at the best the Government actuary has said that actually at a time when a sum of not less than £35,000,000 is going to be expended annually he could only state that there will be a margin of £100,000. I say that very few insurance companies in the land to-day would care to go along on such a financial basis. They certainly would not be prepared to involve themselves in liabilities about which their actuary could not state any definite sum. Therefore I urge that in the first place the House will be very well-advised in not allowing this fund to become subject to any trade disputes, and, secondly, that they will not allow it to be subject to a demand which the Government actuary himself can put no figure on. For all these reasons I second the Amendment of my hon. Friend, and I hope the House will support it.

Mr. SPEAKER: The Question I have to put is, "That the words proposed to be left out, to the word 'participating,' in line 16, stand part of the Bill."

Mr. MACLEAN: I have an Amendment on the Paper to come in directly following the word "participating."

Mr. SPEAKER: I have put the Question down to the word "participating" but it does not include that word.

Sir JOHN SIMON: On a point of Order. May I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to put the Question down to the word "he" in line 16? I desire to move an Amendment to add the words "that neither he nor the trade union to which he belongs is participating or financing or taking any direct part in the trade dispute." It
appears to me it will also be necessary to insert the word "neither" in line 16.

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: Is that not precisely the same Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. L. Thompson), and will that Amendment be preserved by the way in which the Question has been put?

Mr. SPEAKER: I received a moment ago notice of a manuscript Amendment from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Spen Valley, and I thought it would come best in the next sentence after the word "and. "The Amendment of the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. L. Thompson) deals with "society or union." I think it is desirable that we should keep the question in that way, and I shall be glad to consider the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman when he comes to that point.

Sir J. SIMON: The question we are now asked to decide has been one of the most puzzling questions in connection with this subject for a great many years, ever since the year 1911. I do not know whether I ought to feel gratified or embarrassed because the hon. Member opposite has quoted some words of mine. At that time I was simply a labourer who was assisting Lord Buxton, and what I said then put clearly the difficulties which undoubtedly do suggest themselves if you do not draw the line in connection with this matter very tightly indeed. There are two things which should be remembered. In the year 1911 the Liberal Government of that day was framing and devising, and in fact launching an entirely new constitution in connection with making provision for those thrown out of work, and of course our main concern was to be sure that, in launching a ship of an entirely new design, we should not run the risk of it going to the bottom straight away. It would be most unreasonable for anybody in the House to take the view, which was expressed as a matter of caution in 1911, as though it was a view which it was necessarily right to be held for all time. I have enough satisfaction in the small part that I took in that Act to be very unwilling indeed to admit that it was not well and closely framed, and I think that on the whole it was well and closely framed. But, at the same time, we have to consider things as they are found to work in
practice, and it is no good trying to decide this matter by quoting anybody's words, least of all mine, some 13 years ago, when I had the good fortune to be Solicitor-General in an earlier Government.
The second consideration is this: We now have, in fact, some 13 years of experience of the working of the Clause as it was put into the original Act, and, though I think it is possible very much to exaggerate the disadvantages which that Clause has brought about, it really is not open to serious dispute by anyone that, though it may be difficult to devise a better Clause, that Clause has some serious shortcomings. It is quite absurd to pretend that experience in the meantime has gone to show that there is nothing whatever to criticise or to regret in the operation of that Clause as it was originally drawn. That is quite im-impossible. No doubt every Member of the House is familiar with the precise point that we are discussing, but may I be forgiven if, for the purposes of clearness, I just put it in my own words?
In the Clause of 1911, repeated, as it was, in Section 8 of the Act of 1920, you have this very anomalous position, that individuals who themselves are not promoting a trade dispute—say a strike—who are not financing it, whose trade union has nothing to do with it, who are going to gain practically nothing from it, will get unemployment benefit if they are employed in an adjoining works, but will not get unemployment benefit if they are employed in the precise works in which the trade dispute has arisen. I do not think that any fair-minded man can deny that that has led to very curious and artificial results. There was an instance to which I recollect calling the attention of the House of Commons only a year ago—because there are more contributions than one of mine on this subject, though I do not complain because only one has been quoted—when I took it upon myself to point out to the House in 1923 how very queerly and oddly this Clause worked in connection with the then recent strike of moulders on the North-East Coast.
The result was this: First of all, a number of skilled people—moulders—who were concerned directly in the trade dispute, fell out of work because of the trade dispute. In fact, it was they who had taken part in it and caused it. Those
moulders, of course, never claimed unemployment benefit, and that was quite right. It would be an intolerable position if the individual who claims unemployment benefit actually brings about the very risk on the occurrence of which he claims to be paid. Individuals who insure their ships against loss at sea find, to their regret, that they are unable to recover the insurance money from the underwriters if they have taken part in scuttling the ship; and people cannot recover on a fire policy if they have set fire to their own house. Of course, therefore, no one in any part of the House suggests that in the moulders' strike the moulders, who were the skilled workmen whose strike it was, could properly claim benefit from Unemployment Insurance. This Clause does not effect that change at all. But, while that happened in the case of the moulders, and they were quite correctly kept out of any unemployment benefit, there were working in the same works, side by side with them, the labourers. They had nothing to do with the moulders' strike; they did not belong to the same trade union; they had no concern in the result of the strike; they were, in the strictest sense of the term, persons who, for the time being, lost their employment because of someone else's trade dispute.
The result of the law as it was last year, and as it has been since 1911, was undoubtedly this, that, while those labourers, employed in the same works as the moulders who were out on strike, were prevented from getting unemployment benefit for themselves, other labourers elsewhere who belonged to the same labourers' trade union, were, merely because they were working in some other premises, entitled to benefit to which the labourers were not entitled who were working side by side with the moulders. I really do not think the House of Commons can dispute that that is a very curious and artificial result. It may be—and I have been puzzled on this subject and have been much interested in it for years—that it is not easy to devise a more satisfactory arrangement; but it is no good beginning as though the present situation was one which worked manifest justice for everyone, because it does not. Therefore, the real question for the House of Commons is this: Is it possible to effect a modification in the
scheme which will do fair justice to the man who may really be regarded as the innocent victim of a strike, without introducing what we ought to try to avoid introducing—new consequences even more disastrous or anomalous than the ones which occur to-day? That seems to me to be the practical question we have to decide.
There is a certain amount of common ground here. The question is not really what we are aiming at doing. The question is whether or not these words will do it, or whether any words will do it successfully. I imagine no one in any quarter of the House is desiring to change the law so that the Unemployment Fund can be used directly and actively to finance a trade dispute. That would be perfectly intolerable. It would completely destroy what was the whole object of unemployment insurance as it was introduced by the Government of 1911 and as it has been followed and developed since. The second thing is this. We desire, I apprehend, not only that we should not finance out of the Unemployment Fund a trade dispute that is going on, causing the employers, for example, and the State itself actually to pay weekly contributions which would be used, as it were, in the fight later on, an utterly unjust result, as I am sure hon. Members above the Gangway will agree, but we want this thing further. We ought to secure that the change is not one which, as I said long ago, gives opportunity for manipulation. It would be a most undesirable thing if, owing to a change in the law, it became possible for ingenious people, by selecting the people who were going to be called out, indirectly to put a number of other persons, who are really directly interested in the dispute, who hope to gain something from it, who belong to the same trade union, who are really, as it were, sleeping partners or secret allies in the controversy, upon the Unemployment Fund. I hope very much that in stating that I am stating what is the honest intention and purpose of hon. Members above the Gangway. I am confident it is the honest purpose and intention of the Minister of Labour. The whole question is whether or not the Clause affects it. I am bound to say I do not think the Clause, as it is drawn, is in an entirely satisfactory form. For
instance, as it is drawn the test is one that is applied to each individual standing alone. It is proposed to run that the existing provision of the law shall not apply in any case in which the insured contributor proves that he is not participating in the trade dispute which caused the stoppage of work.
Let me give an illustration. It would, surely, be quite intolerable that the trade union to which the individual belongs should actually be financing or supporting a strike and yet the individual in question should be able to draw unemployment benefit. It was for that reason that I was hoping, though I agree at very late notice to you, Sir, that you would have thought well to enable me to move an Amendment—owing to the way the question was put it is impossible to do it now—which would have introduced some words at that point. It may be that they can be introduced later on, but in order to show what I have in mind, I should like to read Clause 4 (1) in the form in which it would have seemed to me much better calculated to remove what, I admit, is an anomaly and at the same time not to give the opportunity for new injustice and wrong. I regard it as a gross injustice if this fund could possibly be available for a member of a trade union when the trade union is, in fact, financing or supporting the trade dispute which has caused the individual to be thrown out of work. It would be a gross injustice if we altered the law so that individuals who were directly interested in the success of a trade dispute should, none the less, be getting unemployment benefit in the meantime. I am not in the least satisfied that such individuals should get unemployment benefit merely because they can come forward and say, "Look at me as an individual. I am not participating in the dispute. Therefore, you must give me unemployment benefit, and you have no right to ask whether or not I am directly interested in the success of the dispute." That being so, the qualification which I think might be worth the consideration of the House is this—no doubt, it can be put in other words, but, I have my own words—whether Sub-section (1) could be so altered as to improve the present law without introducing a new and very serious danger. It might be altered in this way:
Sub-section (1) of Section eight of the principal Act (which imposes a disqualification for the receipt of benefit during a stoppage of work) shall not apply in any case in which the insured contributor can prove that neither he nor the trade union to which he belongs is participating or financing or directly interested in the trade dispute which causes the stoppage of work.
We ought without distinction of party to try to get a better provision than the existing one, without introducing what I regard as a very serious danger both as to the solvency of the fund and the justice of the case.

Mr. LUKE THOMPSON: May I ask whether the right hon. and learned Member is in order, seeing that my Amendment which immediately follows is couched in the same terms?

Mr. SPEAKER: The right hon. and learned Member is in order in what he is saying. I have already said that the hon. Member's Amendment covers part of the point which is now being put.

Sir J. SIMON: I hope the hon. Member opposite will understand that I have not the smallest desire to claim credit for this. I am not thinking about credit at all. Let it be understood, publicly and privately, that the whole credit belongs to the hon. Member. I am talking about an endeavour of the House of Commons to put into better shape something in which I have been interested for 12 or 13 years. I may say, however, that I do not agree with the words "Society or Union" in the hon. Member's Amendment. "Society" is not the proper expression. The expression trade union is the correct one. The general way in which this Clause might have been reformed would have been to secure that not merely the individual in question but the trade union to which he belongs should be one which is not participating in, is not financing and is not directly interested in the trade dispute which is going on.

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: Will the right hon. and learned Member explain why he only uses the word "directly"? Why does he not say directly or indirectly?

Sir J. SIMON: My real reason is this. There is a sense in which the labourer in the course of the moulders' dispute was very much interested in the trade dispute.
He was interested in the sense that because of the trade dispute he was out of work. You are not going to deprive the labourer who had nothing to do with the moulders' dispute from getting benefit because in that sense he was interested. If you apply the test which I suggest as to whether or not he is directely interested, I think anyone would so construe that as meaning, "Is the fight a fight in which, although you do not take an active part in it, you are interested as being to your advantage?"

Lieut.-Commander BURNEY: Directly or indirectly. Suppose a trade union is not directly connected with the strike, but gives a loan to a trade union that was, that would be indirectly but not directly.

Sir J. SIMON: If the hon. and gallant Gentleman would be so kind as to follow me for a moment he will find that I use the word "finance." I get rid altogether of the rule which says that because A. B. is working in the same mine, factory or works, therefore he cannot in any circumstances get unemployment benefit. I do not think that that works fairly, and I am sure that experience goes to show that in some cases it works very hardly. The question is, Can you let him in without opening the door to numbers of things which honest people ought not to desire?

Mr. SEXTON: The right hon. and learned Gentleman knows that you may have a case of this kind. There are two sets of men working in the docks belonging to the same union and not working for the same employer. The men working on the quay go on strike because they have a dispute with their employer. The men on the ship have no dispute and do not go on strike. The men on the quay get strike pay from their union, which is financed by the men on the ship. What are you going to do about that?

Sir J. SIMON: The hon. Member is very fond of that illustration. This is the third time we have heard it in the House of Commons. It only shows that the matter is one which has got to be very carefully considered. I do not know whether I am asking too much of the House of Commons, after the indulgence which has been extended to me, if I ask to be allowed to read my words. I think
that they are an improvement, and I sincerely desire to make a suggestion for the consideration of the Minister. What I would suggest is that it is not enough to say when this individual participates, because you may have people who know that the individual is not participating, but, nevertheless, having got an interest, and a direst interest, in what is going on, the union even may be interested, and may be financing or lending money. Therefore I think that the words ought to be:
In any case in which an insured contributor proves that neither he nor the trade union to which he belongs is participating in or financing or dirctly interested in the trade dispute which caused the stoppage of work.
I do not for a moment say that those words are the best, but they represent what I have at the back of my mind. What I desire is to see whether we can solve what is undoubtedly a terribly complicated problem, which has been considered most carefully by both sides for years, by accepting Sub-section (1) of Section 4, insofar as it seeks to remove the present rule, which seeks to disqualify a man, however far away he is from the trade dispute, if he happens to be working under the same roof, and which introduces a fairer and more logical test. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] I hope so. If what anybody is after is that this unemployment fund should be used to finance a strike. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] Then we are all at one! If anybody suggests that this unemployment fund is going to be used to finance a strike, it is not only merely unemployment insurance but it will do great injustice. I do not believe anything of the kind. I believe that those who are seeking to vary the present law are seeking to do so because experience has shown that the present rule does operate with great hardship on certain individuals. If we can find words which will really protect the innocent individual without introducing new and very serious mischiefs, then I think the Clause, with such modifications, might be supported. I am obliged to the House for letting me say this. I have been quoted in Committee and on the Floor of the House for something I said 13 years ago. I said it with the skilled advice of some at least of the very officials who are advising the Minister now.

Mr. SHAW: The hon. Member for South Bradford (Mr. H. Spencer) said I was very anxious to get this Bill through. I am, because unless this Bill goes to another place very soon it will be too late, and we shall have 100,000 people falling out of benefit, which I would not like to see. It is for that reason I am very anxious. I am a very, very innocent person, but even my innocence is a bit shocked by my hon. Friend from South Bradford who, in spite of the fact that on the Committee the majority in favour of this Clause was 21 to 15, blandly says. "If you had only accepted what we said, you would have got your Bill through." The question is, have I got a case, and does the Clause I have meet the case? I suggest that I have a ease, one that I believe was considered to be a really serious case in the days even of the Coalition Government. From that time onwards people have been trying to find words that would deal with the admitted injustice that was being done. I think it was understood in the House by everybody that the injustice existed, and that it was quite wrong to penalise people who were suffering as the result of either a strike or lock-out in which they had neither lot nor part and the result of which could neither improve their circumstances nor make them worse. The moulders' dispute is a typical example. The labourers in that case had no more to do with the moulders' dispute, except to suffer, than any other part of the community. They were not interested financially in any way, whether the moulders won or not. It did not mean anything to their wages or conditions. They were just sufferers in the dispute without any chance of receiving pay. I am proposing to remove what I consider an injustice. I am promising, first—and the terms are very simple—that before a man can get benefit at all, he must prove that he is not a participant in the dispute. I could, if I tried hard, imagine 101 things which might happen to make this Clause of mine unjust. I suggest it is an impossibility, in the present way of conducting trade unions, for a person to be a participant in a trade dispute without the fact being known. Strikes are for a very definite object. It may be an application for an increase in pay, or a variation of hours, or for an improvement of conditions. But a union cannot go to a firm
and say we want for our members here certain conditions, and if we do not get, those conditions we will remove a certain number of men. That is precisely the last thing any union would attempt to do. The idea, that it would say to some of its members "you must go on working and black-legging while we withdraw other men,' is quite illusory and far from all probabilities.
The policy of the union is always to withdraw all the men in order to make the strike as complete as possible, so I would suggest that the actual facts are quite contrary to the imaginary case which has been quoted, in which a number of men were withdrawn and others allowed to stay on while the endeavour was being made to get improved conditions. I suggest that no authority in the world would have any great difficulty in deciding whether a person was or was not a participant in a certain trade dispute. If that be not enough, let me say a person must not be a member of a grade participating in the movement. It would be a very injudicious thing to split, as it were, union members and non-union members into two parties. If we had to say to a man, "Are you a member of the union that is running this dispute? If you are you are not entitled to pay, "and if we are to say to another man, "Are you a member of this union," and if he happens to be a member of another union he will get paid, I suggest that that would be very bad policy. You have various classes of workers to bear in mind in order to prevent the possibility of men genuinely engaged in a trade dispute receiving pay under this Clause.

Sir THOMAS INSKIP: What is the distinction between a grade and a class?

Mr. SHAW: You might have in a foundry two kinds of fitters, one graded as a foreman and the other as an ordinary fitter. The foreman might, as a matter of fact, be friendly to the employer and stop on, because the dispute was caused by men in another grade who were definitely engaged in the dispute. What I want to suggest to the House is this. The terms of the Clause are drawn sufficiently wide to bring into the net everyone definitely concerned in the trade dispute, and I venture to suggest that in actual practical life there is no man on strike in any firm that can escape the meshes of this net. I have given very careful considera-
tion to the question originally raised in an Amendment by my hon. Friend opposite which speaks of a society or a union. I venture to suggest that the matter becomes complicated when one begins to use his vivid imagination about societies and unions.
11.0 P.M.
I might make "society" into a choral society, and "union" into any kind of union. Again, I suggest to the House that the two simple principles are these: First of all, there is an injustice. I do not think that anyone denies the injustice. Secondly, I have really tried to find a remedy which, from my own experience—which is not a small one—would prevent the absolutely sincere person who has nothing to do with the strike from being refused benefit.

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: This is, without exception, the most difficult subject in the whole of the Bill, and it is for that reason that probably everyone in the House wants to do what is the right and fair thing. The right hon. Gentleman has spoken in defence of his Clause as if there were really no risk. I am sure he will admit that, if there were no risk of this Clause being used to subsidise a strike at the expense of the Fund, there would not be such serious anxiety on the part of, not cantankerous employers, but very progressive employers indeed. I suggest that what the House has to do is to recognise that, on the one hand, there is a hardship which should be met, and, on the other hand, that there is a very real danger and risk. Think what the position would be. The right hon. Gentleman must admit that when an Act of Parliament is passed there is always the most astute legal advice in the world available to enable anyone to try to get round it. If there is a hole in the net it is open to an organisation of employers or an organisation of workmen to get the most skilled advice possible and to see whether they can manipulate the powers given to them under the Act so as to obtain the benefit of a subsidy at the expense of the Fund. I am sure that Members in all quarters will admit that it would be an absolutely insupportable position if an employer should be called upon by means of his contributions to subsidise a strike which is being conducted against his business. It would be as bad as if the workers' contributions
were used to subsidise a lock-out against them. Therefore, it is necessary to safeguard absolutely any risk of that kind.
There is undoubtedly in many cases a great hardship to people who are indirectly affected by a strike to which they are not a party. The way to get out of that difficulty is to do a thing which, I am sorry to say, the Minister has consistently refused to do, and that is, in a key industry or a great public service, to secure that an inquiry takes place before a strike or lock-out. If he would only do that, he would do more to ensure the safety of these men than by any provision he can put into this Bill. The second thing about which we have to be careful is that the fund is already insolvent, on the basis of the contributions which the Minister has put into the Bill. Apart from the announcement he made that he was going to accept a proposal which will cost £4,500,000; on the actuary's second report the Minister without this Clause has only £100,000 a year to meet all contingencies on an estimated expenditure of £30,500,000. That is, actuarially, a most dangerous and unsound position, and that is without taking into account what the actuary describes as the incalculable liabilities of this Clause. For that reason alone it behoves us to be careful that we do not encourage any form of strike or lock-out which is going to fall on this fund, unless it is necessary and just that the people concerned should be relieved. I think a great case has been made out for some more definite words than those which the Minister has put in. For my own part, I think the words suggested by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Spen Valley, provided he will accept one condition, go nearer to meeting the equity of this case than any other I have heard. The addition which I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman to make are the words "whether directly or indirectly." I think the right hon. and learned Gentleman was disposed to treat the suggestion cavalierly and he said that labourers, of course, would have an indirect interest in a strike because they were thrown out of work by it. The right hon. and learned Gentleman did me an injustice by that answer because that was not in the least what I meant. What I meant
was that they should have no interest, direct or indirect, in the success of the dispute. [HON, MEMBERS: "They all have."] I would remind hon. Members that we are trying to get something, which I hope we shall get by consent. It is quite obvious you must not give, directly or indirectly, any kind of subsidy which will pass to the benefit of those who are in any way responsible for a strike or lock-out or are calculated to benefit from a strike or lock-out. Therefore, if the right hon. Gentleman would accept the words "directly or indirectly interested in the success of the strike" it would probably go a long way to meet the difficulty. If the Clause can be so drawn as to exclude all possibility of it being used to subsidise a strike then I think that alteration should be made, and, speaking for myself, I think the words suggested, with the addition I propose, would go a considerable way to meet the case.

Mr. CLIMIE: I have here a pamphlet issued by the National Federation of Employers' Organisations, and it was from this pamphlet that an hon. Member who spoke previously was quoting, in regard to the views of the employers. It is but a proof that, an any rate, there are some hon. Members on the other side who would wish in a matter of this kind that we should keep marking time at the pace of 1911. Hon. Members can hardly conceive how important it is that this question should be cleared up. I have had a considerable experience in industrial organisation and in organising the unskilled workers, who probably suffer more from the operation of this strike Clause than any other class of worker. I remember the case of some boilermakers who were on strike in a shipyard. The labourers who were employed in the repair of the permanent way that ran through the centre of the shipyard, because of the fact that the boilermakers were unemployed and work got slack, were dismissed or suspended, and the employment exchange decided that they were unemployed because of the dispute of the boilermakers. They had no more to do with the boilermakers than the hon. Member for West Woolwich (Sir K. Wood) had to do with that dispute.
I could go on in connection with builders' labourers with exactly the same
set of conditions arising. A bricklayer has a dispute, and the builders labourer is not directly interested, but he is unable to draw his unemployment benefit, although he is not interested in the point in dispute. I want to urge upon the Minister of Labour not to accept any of the suggestions put forward by the right hon. and learned Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon). If he begins to tamper with this Sub-section (1) as it is drafted he is going to open the door so that his intentions will not be carried out to the full. I wish to draw the Minister's attention to this fact, that the right hon. Member for Spen Valley says that he wishes words to be added requiring the insured contributor to prove that neither he nor the trade union to which he belongs is participating in or financing or directly interested in the dispute. I want to point out that where the leading men in a works, the only parties interested in a dispute with regard to conditions of labour, go out on strike, all the men thrown out belonging to the same union, because of the strike will not be able to draw unemployment benefit. I am quite clear in my own mind that the words suggested by the right hon. Member for Spen Valley will not carry out the intention that the Minister has in the Subsection under discussion.

Dr. MACNAMARA: I was very disappointed with the Minister's reply. He knows, as we all know, that this is a very troublesome thing indeed. The whole structure of the scheme, taking contributions from the employer and the employed, makes this almost impossible of solution. The Minister knows the effort we have made. As has been said by the hon. Member for West Woolwich (Sir K. Wood), I asked the Lord Privy Seal and Sir Allan Smith to find a solution. It failed. Later I appointed a committee to find a way out, and then comes the present Minister—I am sure he will forgive me for saying—like a bull at a fence. What happens? Employers are paying 10d. a week cheerfully and willingly. You cannot be surprised if they say that this thing is now going to be used in such a way as to prolong and not shorten disputes, and they are tired of it. The right hon. Member for Spen Valley, who has very great legal knowledge, has suggested words which, I should have hoped, the
Minister might carefully have considered, and I hope we shall vote upon them. We have to get this thing as near right as we can, although it is very difficult. I submit that my hon. Friend should ask leave to withdraw his Amendment, and that we should vote upon the words suggested by the right hon. Member for Spen Valley. That would be a better solution than this by a long way, and would prevent injustice arising. Unless the Minister agrees to do something of that sort, he stands a very likely chance of losing this Clause altogether.

Mr. G. BALFOUR: Almost the concluding words of the Minister of Labour were to the effect that the principal object he had in view was to remove injustice to workmen thrown out of work, if not directly engaged in a strike. Up to that point we can all agree with the Minister of Labour, but I venture to suggest that, while we are all anxious to remove a particular injustice to individuals, we all have a very much greater duty imposed upon us in this House, and that is to see that, in the removal of a particular injustice to individuals, we do not inflict upon the community at large a still greater injustice.
Just in a word or two I will content myself by drawing the attention of the House to an incident that must still be fresh in the memories of hon. Members, namely, the recent dispute in connection with the Underground Railways. Just imagine, even now, if "directly" or "indirectly" had been inserted in the Clause, how you would have dealt with a situation such as we were faced with then. The object was to bring out the men in the power stations. I happen to know that it was confidently predicted that, by bringing out these men, they would shut down the whole of the Underground services of London. I happen to know that they failed—it is common knowledge—and what followed? That is what you have to deal with in the future—that is, if you pass this Clause as it stands. When they failed to shut down the Underground services the uniformed men, who would all have been thrown out of employment if the services had been shut down, owing to the power stations men coming out, would rightly have been brought under this Clause for unemployment benefit. [HON. MEMBERS: "They
were not insured at all!"] I quite understand that. I am merely illustrating the situation by what is within our knowledge, and because the thing is difficult to illustrate. The uniformed men did, in fact, come out on strike. Could anybody discover any arrangement between the two unions. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"]. I do not know whether there was or not. It is not my intention or desire to enter into controversy on the subject with hon. Members opposite, for we are all equally interested in the solution of this problem. But how can you deal with two unions, acting in close co-operation—the one calling a strike, and the men of the other affected, and not unwilling, in the circumstances, to come on the unemployment fund? You need to devise a form of words to meet the situation. I respectfully suggest that, even if we adopt the form of words suggested by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon), or the Amendment suggested by my right hon. Friend below me, you will still be faced with the difficulty. The word "indirectly" will not protect you, or I would at once say accept it. But how are you to know where the application of the word "indirectly" begins and ends? I submit that, with all the goodwill in the world to help the Minister of Labour in the solution of the question, he must at least make certain that he protects the community at large against injustice rather than always seek to protect a particular individual against injustice.

Mr. NEIL MACLEAN: I have listened to the Debate on this Amendment and to the suggestions made to the Minister of Labour from different parts of the House, particularly to the suggestion made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon). From the agitation which the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion has caused on the Front Treasury Bench, I should think it is likely to be accepted. I want to point out that the wording of the Bill does not cover the grievance of the people who are refused benefit by the employment exchanges because of a trade dispute, and even the words suggested by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Spen Valley do not solve the difficulty. There was quite recently a dispute
among the dockyard workers at Southampton. The local trade unions of the men on strike ordered them back to work, but they refused. Then the Employers' Federation posted notices to lock-out the men, up and down the whole of Great Britain.

Sir J. SIMON: And the Government Clause does not help them.

Mr. MACLEAN: Your proposal does not help them either, but the words of my Amendment would help them, and that is the position. The men in the shipyards on the Clyde, the Mersey and the Tyne would have been locked out, and refused benefit by the employment exchanges, because they would be participating in a trade dispute in which they had no voice, and to which their executive was entirely opposed to the attitude of the men who had brought about the national lockout. A great deal has been said about saving the fund, and doing justice to all the parties concerned, but if a strike take place in any part of the country, and the men on strike prove themselves able to stand the strain without giving in to the employers' terms, then the Employers' Federation post notices for a national lockout, as the Builders' Federation did in the case of the strike at Liverpool, and this action was the inauguration of the present dispute in the building industry.

Sir H. CROFT: It was a one-man strike.

Mr. MACLEAN: The hon. Member used to be a one-man party. Why should thousands of individuals suffer because of a one-man strike? I am glad the hon. Member accepts that idea. [HON. MEMBERS: "Get on!"] I will get on, and I will go on if I keep you here till six o'clock in the morning. I am putting this case forward from the trade unionist's point of view. The hon. Member is putting it forward from the masters' point of view.

Mr. SPEAKER: We are dealing with a very difficult part of the subject, and should be very careful in the words that are used. I hope that hon. Members will listen.

Major Sir BERTRAM FALLE: If the hon. Member would address the Chair it would be better.

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member will address the Chair, if he be not drawn away.

Mr. MACLEAN: I am trying to get on, but if hon. Members on the other Side—

Mr. SPEAKER: Do not take too much notice of them.

Mr. MACLEAN: It is a matter of indifference to me what they say. The wording, as I have said, of the Minister of Labour, the wording proposed below the Gangway, and the suggested alteration by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hendon (Sir P. Lloyd-Greame) do not cover the difficulty in any way. The union itself is the body that ought to see that those who are called out on strike by the vote of its members are not going to suffer any financial loss. That is a matter upon which Members on these Benches will agree, but at the same time we see no reason why men should suffer who are locked out by employers, not because of any action that they themselves have taken, but merely because one of the trade unions in the industry in which they are employed has ordered a strike, and the masters have thereupon ordered a lockout in different shops. In a shipyard you will find something like 20 different unions organising and catering for different grades and different classes of workers in that particular yard. If one trade union call a strike, members of other trade unions may be locked out, and those who are locked out, going to the employment exchange and presenting their unemploymen cards, are definitely told that, having been locked out because of a trade dispute, they are not entitled to benefit Their trade union is neither paying strike pay nor has it had an opportunity of taking a vote of its members as to whether there should or should not be a strike, and consequently these men are suffering an injustice.
It is all very well for hon. Members in this House to talk about saving the funds, and to talk in an idealistic manner of the duties of the Minister of Labour and of this House to the community outside; but let them bear in mind that individual working men and women who are locked out by employers through no fault of their own because of a dispute, perhaps in another part of the country, have paid their contributions to the Unemployment
Fund, and are justly entitled, having been thrown idle through no fault of their own, to be paid unemployment benefit. No words that have been suggested in this Debate to-night cover that point, and I suggest to the House, to the Minister, and to the Government that, if they are prepared to accept forms of words to tighten up this particular method of refusing benefit to individuals when strikes or lock-outs occur, they ought also to accept forms of words that will safeguard people from being dismissed from their employment—locked out—because of a dispute in which they have had no act or part, and will safeguard the right of those locked out persons to enjoy the unemployment benefit for which their contributions have paid, and the funds which they have built up.

Mr. SHAW: I find myself in a very difficult position. I have to consider, not what is ideally perfect, but how much I can get for the people who have been refused benefit. I feel positively certain, from what has been said, that my Clause, which I think in its simplicity is better than the Amendment, has little chance of being carried. [HON. MEMBERS: "Test it!"] If I test it and lose it, I lose all chance of these people getting benefit, and I am not prepared to do it.

Mr. MACLEAN: You yield to them every time. You never yield to your own party.

Mr. SHAW: I am now concerned as to whether what is done to-night is going to make a declaration of faith, or is going to pay benefit to men who have previously been refused benefit.

An HON. MEMBER: Has the Minister made his peace with the fair sex, as I see no mention of them in the Clause?

Mr. SHAW: I understand the wording of the Clause, if I accepted the words which have been moved, would be,
Sub-section (1) of Section eight of the principal Act (which imposes a disqualification for the receipt of benefit during a stoppage of work) shall not apply in any case in which the insured contributor proves that neither he nor the trade union to which he belongs is participating in or financing or is directly interested in the trade dispute which caused the stoppage of work and that he does not belong to a grade or class of workers members of which are participating in the dispute.
If there be, any strike in an engineering shop, no man working there is paid. That is the present position.

Mr. BUCHANAN: No, it is not. It can be proved the other way.

Mr. SHAW: This, at any rate, seems to me to offer this possibility. Take the moulders' dispute as an example. Every man who was refused benefit will be granted benefit if this be accepted. That is the position of affairs, and as I am more interested in getting honest men, who are out of work through no fault of their own, paid, than I am in declaration of principles, I am going to accept the Amendment.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I at least will divide against the Amendment. Ministers are tumbling over each other to get everything for Liberals and Tories, and nothing for us. They ought to belong to those parties, and not to us. The Amendment can be demonstrated to be even worse than the present Act. It states that any men of a trade union which is engaged in an industrial dispute shall not receive any benefit. I want to point out an actual case where things will be made worse by the acceptance of this Amendment. Take a shipyard dispute where joiners are employed. The joiners there have a dispute with their employers. There are also joiners working in engineering shops and in the building trade. These joiners have no dispute with their employers, but this Clause as amended by the Amendment proposed by the Hon. Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon) would affect every joiner. The Clause as it stands would mean that if the ship joiner is on strike the building trade joiner is not deprived of benefit, and the engineering joiner can get benefit. Take the case of the light castings moulder and the heavy castings moulder, which are totally different industries. What happens now? They are both in the same union. The light, castings moulder has a dispute with his employer, but the heavy castings moulder has not, and he is not deprived of unemployment benefit. Under this Amendment, because they are both in the same union acid financing the strike, both sets of moulders would be debarred from benefit. Therefore the conditions will be much worse than under the present Act.
I certainly prefer the present Act than the proposed form of words. This is a highly technical discussion, and these words are thrown at us and without any full discussion we are to come to a decision. I am a member of a highly skilled trade union, the Patternmakers' Union. There are some patternmakers who are organised in the Patternmakers' Union, and other are in the Amalgamated Engineers Union. Our union has a dispute with the employers, but the Amalgamated Union man has no dispute. The Amalgamated Engineers Union patternmakers under the Clause as it stands is to be paid his benefit, but the patternmakers in the Patternmakers' Union is not to be paid.

Sir J. SIMON: There is a misapprehension. The Bill as it stands enables a person to get unemployment benefit even if he be out of work by reason of a stoppage of work due to a trade dispute, as long as that person is employed somewhere else. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] The Clause which we are trying to improve, and I am trying to improve it, prevents a man getting unemployment benefit when he is out of work by reason of a stoppage of work because he is a person who, when he was in work, was in the same factory in which the trade dispute happened The only thing we are doing is that we are making a wider door than exists to-day. We are not shutting any door

Mr. BUCHANAN: The right hon. Gentleman is stating what is not correct Some hon. Members seem to think that when a trade dispute occurs, everybody in the factory where that dispute occurs are debarred under the present Act from benefit. I do not think any previous Minister of Labour would accept that point of view. Everybody in the factory who is connected with the particular industry in which the dispute occurred is debarred, but not everybody in the factory. Take an engineering shop, where engineers and moulders were employed. When there was a dispute with the moulders, the engineers in that shop were not cut off from getting benefit. Therefore if a Minister of Labour or the right hon. Member for Spen Valley says that everybody at present in a factory is debarred, he is not accurate.

Mr. H. SPENCER: These Departments are called a factory under the Act.

Mr. BUCHANAN: The right hon. Member for Spen Valley says that all who are working under the same roof are debarred. Take the case of a man who is a non-unionist. He may come on strike. The right hon. Member for Spen Valley says that the non-union man is to get benefit and the union man is not. Here we have the position in which a trade union Minister and the right hon. Member for Spen Valley say that every member of a trade union is to be debarred, whether he is connected with the dispute or not. This would debar a building trade joiner from benefit, if the shipyards were on strike, and it would give benefits to non-unionists and deny them to trade-unionists. If a Minister of Labour, particularly a Minister who has an honourable connection with trade unionism in this country, accepted that, it would be a gross betrayal of our movement. I would not blame the President of the Board of Trade. He knows nothing about these matters. I would divide against this Amendment, just as I would divide against the abolition of the Clause altogether.

The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Mr. Clynes): Clearly we cannot conform to the understanding that was reached earlier to conclude business at 12 o'clock, owing to new features which have arisen in the debate. If my hon. Friend who has just sat down were right in his conclusions, we could not for a moment think of accepting the manuscript Amendment of the right hon. Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon), but we believe that he is wrong, and that the House is suffering for the moment under the very real handicap of not having the terms of the Amendment before us. In view of the limitations to which I have referred, and as the hon. Member for South Bradford (Mr. H. Spencer) has intimated his desire to withdraw the Amendment, I would suggest that that Amendment should be withdrawn, and the suggested manuscript Amendment of the right hon. Member for Spen Valley placed upon the Order Paper, so that the House should have an opportunity of examining it. [HON. MEMBERS: "It is accepted!"]

Mr. SPEAKER: May I point out that, in the form in which the words were read out by the Minister of Labour, they could not go on the Paper owing to the Amendment now before the House. If the pre-
sent Amendment be withdrawn, they can then be placed on the Paper in the form in which they were read out, but the Amendment of the hon. Member for Govan (Mr. Maclean) comes first.

Mr. H. SPENCER: I was perfectly willing to withdraw my Amendment, and in fact rose two or three times to ask permission to do so on condition that, if we withdraw, the Minister of Labour would accept the form of words he read. I do not express my desire to withdraw without that condition.

Mr. SPEAKER: Is it the pleasure of the House that the Amendment be withdrawn?

HON. MEMBERS;: No.

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: I think the hon. Gentleman has proposed to withdraw his Amendment on the understanding that we can then vote upon the new Amendment. [Interruption.] That is what the hon. Gentleman has been trying to say for three-quarters of an hour. I understand that we should vote either upon the Amendment of my right hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon) or the Amendment which is identical in its purpose of my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland (Mr. L. Thompson). That, I understand, is the general sense in all quarters of the House. We have had a very long and fruitful discussion upon this question. It is perfectly clear to Members in all quarters of the House what is the issue at stake in this matter, and I think I am right in suggesting that we are perfectly prepared now to come to a decision upon either the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Spen Valley or on that of my hon. Friend.

Mr. SPEAKER: The Question was put, "That the Amendment be withdrawn," and several Members said "No."

Mr. B. SMITH: Some said "Yes."

Mr. SPEAKER: If one says "No" that is sufficient. Therefore, the House will have to proceed to decide on the Amendment of the hon. Member for South Bradford (Mr. H. Spencer). If that procedure be taken, then the Amendment of the hon. Member for Govan (Mr. Maclean) comes next. We cannot proceed at once with these other words.

Sir J. SIMON: On a point of Order. It does seem to me not at all unreasonable that hon. Gentlemen who appear to be in some doubt as to the effect of the new words should have a chance of seeing them on the Paper. [Interruption.] I think everyone who keeps his temper knows that our object here is to try to get the Clause in proper form. I know the Minister of Labour would never have got up and given the unconditional promise he did that he would accept these words until after he had consulted the extremely able and skilled advisers at the service of the Minister. Therefore, I am sorry that anyone should think that he did it in a fit of stupidity. At the same time I would much sooner that everyone is satisfied that the words do what is intended, which is to make things better and not worse. I hope, therefore, my hon. Friend the Member for South Bradford will be allowed to withdraw his Amendment, and I hope it will then be possible for me to put my Amendment on the Paper, because the last thing I want to do is to leave anyone under the impression that I am trying to take advantage of the position.

Mr. SPEAKER: The Amendment cannot now be withdrawn. It must be decided upon, because withdrawal was refused. Therefore, I must put the Amendment.

Mr. H. SPENCER: If we do not divide, am I to understand that the word of the Minister still stands good, and that the Government will accept the new form of words? If I ask permission to withdraw my Amendment, can I have an assurance from the Minister that the promise he made to me will be carried out, or has the right hon. Gentleman changed his mind? If so, I do not withdraw the Amendment.

Mr. B. SMITH: I understand the ruling of the Chair is that the Amendment cannot now be withdrawn. Is the hon. Member therefore not now out of Order in presenting his views?

Mr. SPEAKER: As mover of the Amendment, the hon. Member is entitled to make further remarks.

Viscount WOLMER: If the hon. Member's Amendment is negatived, would the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon) be in Order in moving his Amendment?

Mr. SPEAKER: I have tried to explain to the House that the words suggested by the Minister of Labour were not in the form which I had suggested as the best drafting.

Mr. SPENCER: Does the Minister propose to stick to the straight pledge he gave me personally? [Interruption.] If hon. Members are determined not to allow me to speak, I shall be prepared to go on. I do not want to quibble about words. The pledge the right hon. Gentleman gave me, as a consideration for withdrawing the Amendment, was that he would accept certain words. Do the Government intend to abide by the spirit of that pledge, and to accept those words or some similar form of words?

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That further consideration of the Bill, as amended, be now adjourned."—[Mr. Shaw.]

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: May I ask one specific question of the Lord Privy Seal, who was not, I believe, in the House at the time when the Minister of Labour gave his undertaking? As there is some doubt in the minds of some hon. Members, I want to ask if the Deputy Leader of the House adheres to that undertaking, and accepts the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon)?

12 M.

Mr. CLYNES: I heard what my right hon. Friend said in reference to the manuscript Amendment. I am anxious to see that Amendment on the Paper. I see no reason to differ from my right hon. Friend as to what that Amendment means.

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: We are asked to adjourn the Debate in order that we may bring this discussion to a conclusion at a future date. I asked the right hon. Gentleman not what he thought was the meaning of the words. I now ask again specifically, does the Lord Privy Seal accept and endorse the categorical undertaking given by the Minister of Labour that he will accept the Amendment proposed by the right hon. Member for Spen Valley?

Mr. CLYNES: I must consult further with my right hon. Friend. I am conscious of the fact that it would please certain Members of the House if I answered categorically the question. I associate myself with my right hon. Friend as to the course which the Government will take when the Amendment is on the Paper.

Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee) to be further considered To-morrow.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

It being after half-past Eleven of the clock upon Wednesday evening, MR. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Four minutes after Twelve o'Clock.